Two Sides of the Same Coin
by noiselessheart
Summary: Harry and Draco find out the hard way that the line between hate and love is a fine one, and that somewhere between the Battle of Hogwarts and being thrust back together as Hogwarts eighth years, they may have just crossed it.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

"_When love is suppressed hate takes its place." - Havelock Ellis_

Eleven-year-old Draco Malfoy was standing perfectly still, admiring his reflection in the mirror. A frumpy middle-aged witch pinned his new robes, and he sighed. Draco's gray eyes stared back at him from the mirror and his reflection gave a small wave, accompanied by a hesitant upturn of thin pink lips. The corporeal Draco frowned at his effeminate features: the soft white-blond hair smoothed back from his pale skin, the delicate pink lips, the thick white-blond lashes framing gray eyes. Truth be told, Draco found himself to be rather beautiful, but this opinion was constantly undercut by his father's comments of "You'll grow into your features one day, Draco." A cock of the head and a frown often accompanied the phrase, his father clearly not finding in Draco's appearance what he'd hoped of the heir to the Malfoy lordship.

Draco's reflection shrugged and lifted a hand to stroke its own cheek. Though the image could not extend beyond the glass to physically touch Draco, he felt the caress all the same, and was comforted by it. Draco had been told that most reflections did not move independently of their person, even in the wizarding world, but Draco's always had. His reflection had always been a companion of sorts, keeping Draco company at his most lonely – which was often. Draco had led an isolated childhood, having only his father's cohorts' progeny as a selection for playmates. After making the mistake of mentioning it once when he was six, his interactions with his reflection had, from then on, been one more thing he kept from his parents, at risk of appearing too fanciful. It seemed to Draco that everything he did revolved around avoiding garnering his father's disapproval, something that always seemed to follow displays of supposed softness of character on Draco's part: his looks, his imaginary friendship with his reflection . . . most of it things he could not help.

Draco sighed, directing the air upward to toss a few stray hairs off his forehead. He was starting Hogwarts in a few days. He hoped things would be better there.

Just then, there was a tinkle of a bell as the door to Madam Malkin's shop opened. Draco's animated reflection tossed a startled glance towards the door then disappeared, so that all that remained was Draco. Alert, his eyes watched in the mirror as the door admitted a scrawny boy with black hair and round-rimmed glasses. He looked nervous as he exchanged a few words with Madam Malkin, and then made his way towards where Draco was being fitted at the back of the store.

Draco's pulse elevated in excitement – his first chance to make a friend of his own. His father considered friendship a dalliance for the weak-spirited. But Draco could not think about his father at a time like this – he'd been so lonely for too long; his eyes widened in anticipation of befriending this tousle-haired boy.

As the boy got closer, and then stepped up onto the stool next to Draco, Draco got a better look at him. He was about Draco's size – a little shorter, but just as wiry – with messy black hair that fell into his dark green eyes. The lenses of his glasses were smudged – _honestly, has he never heard of a cleaning charm?_ – but despite the fog, the vibrancy of those eyes was clear and undiluted. When the boy cast a look at Draco, the effect of those eyes focusing on him, Draco Malfoy, sent a jolt of anxious delight through the pit of Draco's stomach.

"Hello," said Draco to cover up the turmoil of exhilaration and nerves within him, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said the boy.

"My father's next door buying my books and my mother's up the street looking at wands," Draco informed him. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one, and then I'll smuggle it in somehow." Draco's voice fell into the Malfoy drawl he'd affected in public since he learned to speak. It became especially exaggerated whenever he bragged, as he was beginning to do now.

The look on the other boy's face caused a stirring of unease in Draco's stomach. The boy did not seem particularly taken with Draco, much to his alarm. He'd assumed friendship would be easy to forge once he had the chance, but it seemed that might not be the case after all.

"Have _you_ got your own broom?" he asked. Perhaps the boy just needed an invitation to speak of himself.

"No," said the boy. Draco tried to swallow against the worry that he was going about this wrong. Shouldn't friendships start off with conversations which consisted of more than one-syllable replies?

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No."

In desperation, Draco allowed himself to succumb to the desire to brag. Perhaps if he could market himself well enough the situation could still be salvaged. "_I_ do – Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No," said the boy, yet again. Draco resisted the urge to stomp his foot in frustration. He desperately wanted to impress this boy, for some reason, wanted this strange boy with the bright green eyes to like him. He was unlike any of the dull brats his father set him up with: Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they," he babbled, "but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been – imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Mmm," said the boy, looking nonplussed.

A looming figure outside the window caught Draco's attention and he latched onto it as a point of conversation, an anomaly the two of them could share. Wasn't that the sort of thing people bonded over?

"I say, look at that man!" Draco exclaimed, pointing.

"That's Hagrid," said the boy, and Draco wanted to sigh in relief that he was finally saying more than 'yes' or 'no' in response to something he had said. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Oh, I've heard of him," said Draco, eager to continue this thread as long as he could, to prolong their conversation. "He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper." The boy frowned slightly, and Draco wondered what he could have possibly said wrong.

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage – lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed," said Draco, a laugh ready on his tongue for the moment when the other boy would join him in amusement at the peculiarities of some of the more eccentric members of the wizarding world.

That moment didn't come. The boy's frown deepened as he said, "I think he's brilliant," in a chilly voice.

"_Do_ you?" Draco was aghast. Then comprehension dawned. He_ had_ said something wrong, because this boy was – for some inexplicable reason – with the gamekeeper. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead," said the boy, bluntly.

"Oh, sorry," said Draco, too taken aback to remember to sound sincere. "But they were _our_ kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same; they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine," said Draco, well aware that he was shooting off his mouth again. "I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?" he added, suddenly realizing he didn't yet know the boy's name.

But that silly old woman in her hideous robes had to go and interrupt before the boy could answer. "That's you done, my dear," she said to the boy.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts I suppose," said Draco, cursing the fact that he had ordered so many robes. Because of that he had to continue getting fitted rather than being able to leave with this boy and walk around Diagon Alley together, buying the rest of their school supplies. Not that the boy seemed very inclined to want to do such a thing with Draco anyway, he admitted to himself, cursing his ineptitude at this whole making friends business.

The boy left with a shrug, not meeting Draco's eyes, and Draco was once again alone with his reflection.

When the witch pinning his robes accidentally poked him with a pin he squealed much more indignantly than necessary, just to relieve his frustration.

… & …

A few days later Draco strode down the hallway of the Hogwarts Express, moving as fast as his pubescent legs could carry him toward the compartment everyone was saying was _his_ – Harry Potter's. A boy they were all describing as a scrawny little thing to have defeated the Dark Lord, with black hair and glasses. And green eyes, Draco was willing to bet.

His usually quiet heart was pounding yet again, with this boy as the cause: partly out of panic that he might have fudged an opportunity to befriend the most famous wizard in Britain, and partly out of excitement at the opportunity to redeem himself. Draco could just see it, the pair they'd make – the Malfoy heir and the savior of the wizarding world. At the moment, he didn't care to waste any thoughts on the fact that his father served the very Dark Lord Harry was said to have defeated. His father approved of seldom when it came to Draco; if he was going to be scorned for forging friendships in the first place, Draco didn't think the scorn could increase all that much depending on who the friends were.

Draco paused briefly to collect himself and ascertain that Crabbe and Goyle were still following him, and then slid the door of the compartment open.

The boy from Madam Malkin's was sitting inside, across from a flame-headed boy in a shabby homemade sweater. He looked up, startled, at Draco's entrance, then his features settled into wariness.

"Is it true? They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?" asked Draco, though by this point he was all but certain. He fancied he could see a faint edge of a scar on the skin of the boy's forehead, in between clumps of dark hair.

"Yes," said Harry Potter, back to one syllables. Draco caught his gaze drifting behind him towards the two large boys flanking him.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and Goyle. And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy," he said, eager to return Harry's attention to him.

The red-head sniggered and Draco glared, now having the presence of mind to resent that the boy had evidently succeeded where Draco had failed in winning over Harry Potter. "Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford," said Draco, slicking his voice with disdain. His only hope now, he thought, was to show Harry Potter how much better he was than the Weasley boy. With this thought, he turned back to Harry. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there." Draco extended a pale hand towards Harry.

Harry looked at it for a moment. Draco felt his skin warm beneath the potency of those green eyes. Then his eyes rose to meet Draco's, a piercing and unintimidated gaze that made Draco want to look away. He wasn't used to people looking him in the eye without a shred of respect. But he refused to break Harry's gaze. That would feel too much like backing down, and eleven years of training as the future Malfoy patriarch meant that backing down was an impossibility.

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks," said Harry.

Draco's heart froze in his chest, then fell into his stomach and shattered.

Even as a disappointed, embarrassed blush spread across his cheeks, a sharp-edged new resolve hardened in Draco's stomach: a reformation of the shards of his broken heart. Draco's father had been right, he decided. It had been foolish to desire to befriend Harry Potter.

No, if Harry wouldn't have him as a friend, he would have him as a rival. And Draco would not rest until he came out on top.


	2. Seven Years Later

**CHAPTER ONE**

**Seven Years Later**

"_Hate can pardon more than love." - Henry David Thoreau_

"So, Harry," whispered Ginny Weasley, hooking her arm around Harry's and leaning in close so that her words breathed across his neck. "See anyone you fancy?"

"Shh!" hissed Harry. "Someone might hear you."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "So what? What are they going to conclude – that you might actually be attracted to someone?"

"Yes."

"Oh, how filthy. The great Harry Potter has hormones."

"Come on, Gin. You know how it is."

Ginny grinned mischievously. "I sure do," she said. "And my question still stands."

Harry sighed. It was conversations like these that made him regret spilling his secret to Ginny, despite how supportive she'd been.

He looked around the Great Hall, bustling with the excited chatter of the start of term feast. The Sorting Hat was waiting patiently on its stool at the front of the room, and the first-years would be arriving momentarily from the journey across the lake. Students from all houses poured in and took their seats, engaging in fast-paced conversations, catching up with acquaintances they hadn't seen over the summer. The scene was so familiar, so timeless, so identical to previous years...

Except that it wasn't.

For the first time in nearly a decade, Hogwarts was having a start of term feast without the omnipresent threat of Voldemort lurking in the shadows. And for the first time in Hogwarts' long history, the seventh-year students weren't the oldest taking their places at the house tables.

This year there was a handful of eighth-year students – students whom, due to the circumstances of the previous year, had missed too much of the term to graduate and desired a second opportunity to do so. First and foremost among those students were Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but the list also included a miscellany of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, as well as a group of Slytherins who'd been absent for reasons in complete opposition to those of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Most notable in this last group was the enduring enigma known as Draco Malfoy . . . an enigma towards which Harry's head now swiveled.

Harry caught sight of Malfoy's white-blond head at the very back end of the Slytherin table. He sat in a cluster of his usual posse – Goyle and Pansy, Crabbe conspicuously missing – but he didn't seem to be paying them any mind. As Malfoy stared intently at his hands, letting his friends' conversation carry on around him, Harry wondered what he was thinking. Harry had heard stories here and there about Malfoy's life over the summer – his parents' trial and his disappearance, and then the shocking rumors surrounding his parents' sudden and mysterious death. He wondered if the experiences had left Malfoy as dramatically different inside as out. For he'd cut his hair, Harry noticed. Gone were the shoulder-length strands, replaced by the tufts of a buzz cut. His robes were in a state of casual dishevelment that was only notable in contrast to the pristine, just-ironed way they usually hung on his lean frame. He was frowning slightly, and Harry found himself mimicking the expression as he stared.

"I thought I told you, Gin," Harry replied absently, watching Malfoy fiddle with his fork, "I don't fancy anyone right now. You know I'm still trying to adjust to the fact that I fancy any—" Harry was cut off by a loud bang as Hagrid threw open the doors to the Great Hall, surrounded by a nervous fleet of first-years.

"Whatever you say, Harry," whispered Ginny as McGonagall rose to give the start of term speech. "We'll talk later."

McGonagall's speech was nothing groundbreaking, just the expected platitudes about starting a new era of wizardry and putting old rivalries aside. Harry poignantly missed the nonsensical one-liners that had comprised the majority of Dumbledore's speeches, usually pertaining to his desire to begin eating with the greatest haste possible. Harry smiled a little at the memory.

The smile quickly became a frown as thoughts of Dumbledore turned into thoughts of Sirius and everyone else who had been lost in the war, starting with his parents and ending with Fred, Remus and Tonks. The black hole of guilt in Harry's chest that was always poised and ready to consume him at a moment's notice began to open. Harry's breath caught as he attempted in vain to ward it off.

Ginny slid her hand into Harry's and gave a friendly, supportive squeeze that released the pressure building in his chest. He squeezed back gratefully.

It was behavior like this that made people, mostly Ron and Hermione, so unwilling to believe that he and Ginny were no longer dating. But it was exactly as they said – they were merely just very close, purely platonic friends.

Actually, Harry was beginning to value Ginny's friendship above just about anything. There were times when he even began to wonder if he was not closer to her lately than he was to Ron or Hermione. There was just something so therapeutic and comfortable about a friend that didn't judge you, who was on your side in all things.

Who was party to your most privy secret.

Harry hadn't felt right about breaking up with Ginny on the grounds of anything less than the absolute truth, so he'd told it to her. Now she was the only one who knew, and it had brought them together in a bond just as tight as and far more personal than the bond created by fighting a deranged dark wizard for seven years. Not that he regretted anything about his friendship with Ron and Hermione. His friendship with Ginny was just different.

Hermione caught his eye across the table. She glanced down at he and Ginny's entwined hands, then back up at Harry, frowning. Harry shrugged. What could he say? If she and Ron couldn't accept the truth about their relationship there was nothing he could do about it. That is, aside from telling them the whole truth. And he wasn't ready to do that. Not yet.

At the podium, McGonagall was arranging the Sorting Hat on its customary stool. It sang its song, and then the Sorting commenced. Harry only half paid attention. It seemed so long ago that he, himself, had been up there, a quivering eleven-year-old with no idea – absolutely no bloody clue – what he was in for. He didn't even feel like the same person as his bedraggled eleven-year-old self anymore. And in many ways, he wasn't.

Gaps in the Gryffindor table filled with small bodies and young, beaming faces, all of them visibly awed to be sharing a table with the great Harry Potter.

Harry Potter the hero was experiencing a second wind of fame in the wake of his victory against Voldemort, the likes of which he hadn't seen since his earliest days in the wizarding world. It had been going on for over three months now, and Harry Potter the boy had been sick of it almost since the day it began. He hoped it would die out soon, once the new crop of young wizards adjusted to the sight of the legendary Harry Potter doing something as mundane as walking the halls of Hogwarts. He was old news to everyone else. His fellow students had never been all that impressed with the flesh-and-blood version of Harry Potter anyway, and some even less than others...

Harry's gaze went again towards the scrap of white-blond hair at Slytherin table visible through the crowd. Malfoy was grudgingly scooting over to make room for some new Slytherins, who looked just as reluctant to be seated next to the infamous Malfoy orphan.

Harry shook his head and scrunched his eyes shut. _Stop it,_ he ordered himself.

But that was the problem. He couldn't. Ever since he'd pulled the boy from the raging fire as he'd flown for his life from the Room of Requirement during the last battle, he'd had Draco Malfoy on the brain again. Not a mental state that was all that unusual for Harry, certainly, but it was different this time.

This time, it wasn't pure hatred that caused Harry's fascination.

This time, he wanted to know what it was that inspired him to risk his own life to save that of his bitterest rival.

… & …

Draco Malfoy frowned as Pansy prattled on about Merlin-only-knows-what. Her inane chatter had always grated on his nerves, but now he couldn't even find the will to feign interest. He just didn't care. The reflections of the light as it glinted off his silver fork at different angles were much more fascinating. And his thoughts... his thoughts were distracting as well. Between the two, he had no faculties left to pay attention to his so-called friends.

Draco lifted his head as McGonagall started talking somewhere towards the front of the room. The Great Hall was an incoherent mess of teenagers, and Draco's eyes swam looking for a familiar sight to anchor his vision to. There – the black mop of hair that was Harry Potter. He was situated, as usual, next to a vivid redhead. This time, however, the red hair seemed to belong to the female Weasley rather than her brother Ron, who, best as Draco could figure, Harry must keep around solely for comic relief.

The familiar coil of resentment and jealousy tightened in Draco's stomach as he watched Harry and Ginny's coy conversation, but now the coil was – as it had been every time he'd thought of Harry since the previous spring – further confused by another element Draco couldn't quite name. It was something like bitter gratitude with a disconcerting hint of longing. Draco sighed inwardly. His feelings towards the Boy Who Lived had never been simple. Last spring had only further complicated matters.

Draco's fist clenched around the fork. Why had Potter had to go and be the hero again, and this time for Draco's sake? It wasn't something that Draco could simply ignore or forget; it was impossible to continue hating someone two-dimensionally after he threw something like, oh, _saving your bloody life_ into the mix.

If it weren't for Potter, Draco wouldn't be here right now.

And he was increasingly resentful of this fact.

Although, in a twist of irony, it was because of Potter's very act of heroism that Draco even began wishing he had died in that fire. If he hadn't been saved, he would have been in no position to have an opinion on the matter. There was no way he would have survived without Potter's assistance, yet having his sorry excuse for a life indebted to _Harry Potter_ was galling – leading him to wish he'd died alongside Crabbe. It was a circular train of thought that brought Draco to no new conclusions and interminably drove him mad.

Damn Potter. Why couldn't he just let Draco resent him in peace? Why did he have to go and constantly do things to remind Draco that, personal grudges aside, Harry Potter was a top-notch wizard and an even better person?

Draco tore his eyes from the object of his obsessive thoughts, hoping that in doing so he could waylay his mind's fixation. It didn't work. Potter was at the root of everything, and therefore impossible to avoid. He sighed.

"Draco, for Merlin's sake, will you please stop sighing?" barked Pansy. "Honestly. Brooding is _so_ Death Eater."

"Well, unless you've forgotten, it just so happens that I _was_ a Death Eater," Draco retorted, barely resisting the urge to sneer at her.

Pansy merely rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"Just because some people," Draco gestured towards McGonagall, "are preaching about 'the dawn of a new era' doesn't mean that last year didn't happen. Because it did."

"I know, Draco. Merlin. I'm not saying it didn't. I'm just saying that you need to move on already! The Dark Lord's gone. Your parents are gone. It sucks, okay? I know. I've been there. But you can't fester in it forever. You have to just get over it at some point."

Draco bristled at the mention of his parents' deaths and the insinuation Draco wasn't able to move on. Pansy didn't know the half of it.

"If only it were so simple..." he murmured. Pansy gave him a look, but didn't ask him to explain himself. For that, he was grateful.

McGonagall was right – it was a whole new era. One in the context of which Draco hadn't decided what to make of himself. Everything Draco had lived for, everything that had defined him, was now gone. He wasn't sure what he believed in anymore. What he wanted.

The Malfoy name was in tatters. Their proximity to the Dark Lord had made them great, and now that the Dark Lord was gone and Draco was all that was left of one of the most pure bloodlines in wizarding Britain; the Malfoy name had lost almost every thread of respect it had once commanded. All that remained was a residual fear, an instinctual aversion to the one-time fearsome associations of the family.

As the heir, Draco could encourage these aversions, could establish a new legacy of intimidation and superiority. But ever since the moment his eyes had connected with Potter's in the Room of Requirement and he'd seen in them that Potter was going to do whatever he possibly could to make sure Malfoy got out of that room alive – despite every inch of animosity between them and every cruelty Draco had ever inflicted upon him – Draco wasn't so sure that he wanted to be associated with darkness anymore. In fact, when he let himself waver into idealism, his associations were much warmer... green, even, when he got carried away, and not because they were Slytherin colored.

Bloody hell. What was he even talking about? Draco wasn't sure anymore.

Draco glanced back at Potter. Merlin, were he and Ginny holding hands? Draco was sure he'd heard they'd broken up over the summer... not that he cared, one way or the other. But really, what was going on?

Draco sighed again, heavily. Pansy shot him a scathing look that only served to make him want to sigh again in response. But he stopped himself. That'd be petty, and too close to something a Gryffindor would do.

A steady slew of new Slytherins sauntered over to the table as the Sorting progressed, and Draco had to scoot towards Pansy to make room for them. Soon Draco found himself pressed up against the pushy black-haired girl. Pansy was smirking.

"Oh, Draco," she purred, "sitting a little close are we?"

"I'm just making room for the first-years," he muttered.

"Hmm." Pansy fluttered her eyelashes at Draco, her homely face just a little too close for Draco's liking. No matter how many times he tried to rebuff her attentions, Pansy never seemed to be able to comprehend Draco's disinterest. He'd all but given up trying, finding it easier just to endure her flirtations than to dissuade them. Annoying as they were, there didn't really do him any harm.

Across the table, Goyle sniggered. Draco scowled. Some friend. He ought to have more respect for the Malfoy heir, he thought, before remembering how little that meant anymore. How little anything he used to stake his worth in meant anymore.

When everything you measured yourself and your meaning by was destroyed, what did you have to live for?

The dead sense of unease that had settled in Draco's stomach as he'd watched Voldemort's own Killing Curse rebound on its caster seemed to grow just a little bit heavier.

When Draco was honest with himself, he conceded that he really only had two options and neither of them involved primping the infamous Malfoy name.

Either he squared with his Potter complex – as much as the thought galled him – and moved on, or he didn't.

It was the allure of the latter option that scared him.


	3. Partners

**CHAPTER TWO **

**Partners**

"_You hate someone whom you really wish to love, but whom you cannot love. Perhaps he himself prevents you. That is a disguised form of love."- Sir Chinmoy_

Harry stared into the hot heart of the fire crackling in the grand fireplace of the Gryffindor common room. He frowned slightly, and the firelight was slowly burning the inside of his eyelids the black red of dried blood.

"Harry," scolded Hermione, interrupting his thoughts, "you're brooding."

They were all sitting around the fire, relaxing in their post-feast stupor – he, Hermione, Ginny, and Ron.

Harry's frown deepened. Of course, he was brooding. Sure Voldemort was gone, but that almost created as many problems as it had destroyed. Almost.

"What'cha thinking about, Harry?" asked Ginny.

Why did they always ask that? Harry sighed. "Just the usual," he replied, cagey.

"Oh?" Ginny cocked an eyebrow impishly. "And what would that be?"

Harry resisted the ridiculous urge to stick out his tongue at her. He knew what she was not-so-subtly referring to. "Dumbledore. Sirius. Fred. Dobby. Tonks and Remus," he spat instead, more coldly than he had, perhaps, intended. And Hedwig, he thought sadly.

The war had resulted in thousands of deaths, and they all weighed heavily on his conscience. Some – those of his friends – more heavily than others. Accordingly, there was a lot of grieving to do; the desire to see Sirius, Dumbledore, Fred, and all of his other friends who'd died once again was a constant ache behind his eyes, a never-ending clenching in his chest.

Ron's face went pinched and slightly off-color as it always did when anyone mentioned the lost Weasley brother.

"Hey, mate, I'm sorry," said Harry, more kindly. He hadn't meant to upset Ron.

"S'ok," his friend mumbled. "Can you be done brooding for the moment?"

Harry shrugged. Beyond the casualties of the war, there were unsettling consequences of its end to deal with. Quite simply, Harry wasn't sure he knew how to live a life not defined by his campaign against Voldemort. What was his point now? What was to give purpose to his life? And finally, on top of all that, there were more mundane concerns hovering on the fringe: classes to worry about for the first time in over a year, happy couples to envy (it didn't help that one of which was composed of his two oldest friends). And now that Voldemort's absence had given him time to realize it, he was constantly ruminating the fact that he was . . .

"I know you're like Professor Angst over there, but I think I've filled my personal quota for the day," said Ron, interrupting Harry's thoughts. Harry smiled slightly at that.

Ron stretched his lanky frame and yawned. Harry noticed Hermione watching, her skin flushed and expression absent, and smiled. Then he noticed Ginny watching him with a calculating expression and shot her a reprimanding look. She rallied with one of exaggerated innocence.

"I'm so glad we did away with 'ole nasty Red Eyes," Ron said. "Now we can sit around and talk about more civilized, important things instead of moaning about him all the time."

"And what sorts of civilized, important matters did you have in mind to discuss, Ron?" inquired Hermione, sounding amused.

"Quidditch, naturally." Hermione's expression implied that she found this subject to be neither civilized nor important. "And, er..." Ron tried to continue, to salvage himself, "the house-elves debacle?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. But her lips twitched at the corners and Harry knew she was fighting a smile.

"So, Mr. Quidditch Captain," said Ginny, nudging Harry's thigh with her foot, "do I get to keep my spot on the team?"

"We'll see," quipped Harry. "It depends on how you play at tryouts, doesn't it? You'll have to out-fly the competition, just like anyone else. That is, if you can manage it," Harry said with a teasing smirk. He had no doubt Ginny would be able to out-fly any 'competition' with ease. "I wouldn't want to appear to be playing favorites, now would I?"

"That's a casualty I'm willing to risk."

"Oh, are you? How altruistic."

Hermione watched their banter with ever-so-slightly narrowed eyes. "I'm thrilled you've been made captain, Harry," she interjected. "You really need a sort of . . . outlet, I think, to take your mind off things, force you to have fun again. Voldemort's been gone for months now. It's really high time you get to start living a normal life, don't you think?"

Harry decided not to mention that he had been thinking this exact thing not a few minutes ago, though with a somewhat more cynical edge. He wasn't sure he could live a normal life. He wasn't sure he knew how to enjoy life anymore.

"Harry Potter? A normal life? Not bloody likely," said Ron, laughing.

"I agree with Hermione," said Ginny, "I've been telling Harry for ages that he should find a nice... er, someone, to date."

"Have you?" asked Hermione, sounding intrigued and not a little skeptical.

"Oh, yes. I mean, he's never really had a chance to have a proper relationship, has he?" At Harry's look of protest, Ginny rolled her eyes. "Cho hardly counts, Harry. Anyway, I think it's a downright tragedy! A stud like Harry deserves to experience the wonders of love if anyone does..." Ginny winked and pinched Harry's cheek.

Harry glared good-naturedly at her, and Ginny responded with her signature 'you know you love me' smirk.

"What about you and Harry?" Hermione asked, brows furrowed.

"What about us?" Ginny asked, visibly nonplussed.

"Well, you were dating for almost five months. Surely that counts as a proper relationship?"

"Oh, I suppose you're right..." allowed Ginny, sounding for all the world as if she thought otherwise. Which, in fact, she did, though Hermione couldn't know why.

"But I do agree. Falling in love would be just the thing for Harry this year!"

"I don't think..." Harry tried to protest.

"He claims not to fancy anyone!" interrupted Ginny, indignant.

Harry sighed. He couldn't get a thought or word in edgewise tonight without being interrupted, it seemed.

Hermione turned her gaze to sctutinize Harry. "Really? Hm. Well, we've only just arrived. Perhaps things will change. You do know there are loads of girls who fancy you, don't you Harry?"

"Are there?" Harry truly hadn't known. It wasn't exactly on his radar. "Well, I suppose I'm just not too interested in... them."

"You don't even know who they are! How can you know you're not interested?" pressed Hermione.

"Well, er... I suppose it's just that..."

Ron, who had sat through this conversation with an expression of increasing discomfort plain on his face, finally spoke up, much to Harry's relief. "Are we through discussing the particulars of my best mate's love life yet?"

"No," said Hermione and Ginny in unison.

"Actually, I agree with Ron," Harry said, finally speaking up for himself. "You really don't need to worry about me. And please, for-the-love-of-Merlin, do not try to set me up or anything dodgy like that." Harry cast a glance at Ginny, who smiled serenely. "I'm happy as I am, really. I just want to enjoy my freedom and appreciate life again, you know? I don't want a lot of fuss or bother, like a relationship. My life has been so fast and complicated for so long; I'm ready for it to be simple." The girls looked unconvinced. Harry sighed. "Really, I don't need your help. I'm fine. Okay? Anyway, I'm knackered. I think I'll head up to bed."

Ginny pouted.

Hermione, who was too dignified for pouting, frowned.

"I'm gonna stay here for a while longer," said Ron, glancing unconsciously toward Hermione, who smiled. "G'night, mate."

"'Night."

… & ...

Draco Malfoy fiddled with his quill, drawing tangled clumps of lines in the margins of his parchment while he waited for the ever daft Slughorn to begin class. The old fool was still puttering around, doing Merlin-only-knows-what in what had to be a deliberate attempt to delay class.

Draco missed Snape, though he was one of the few who did. Snape had been a brilliant Potions master and a brilliant teacher. And to Draco he'd always been... well, you couldn't exactly call it kind, but he'd treated Draco with respect, which Draco had always appreciated.

And Snape had always started class _on time_.

With nothing to distract him, Draco found himself at loose ends. He began running his hands through his hair in agitation.

Draco missed his long hair. He'd usually worn it pulled neatly back from his face, but just now he was craving the silky swish of it hanging lose against his cheeks and the privacy it would provide, however illusory. His desire to hide behind his hair wasn't so much because people were staring – though a few were – but rather out of nostalgia, a childish desire to cling to anything familiar.

His hair had always been a point of pride for him – he was gratified by its stark white beauty, and the distinctive coloring had served doubly as an outward anchor tying him to the Malfoy name. His pride had been tainted in light of his conflicting feelings in the wake of the previous spring, which was a large part of why he'd cut the long strands off in the first place, as well as it being symbolic of severing all ties to the past and establishing himself in the future as his own person. Nevertheless, his hair would always remind him of his family, such as it was, and of his now forever lost innocence. It was those connotations – especially the latter – that he mourned almost as much as the hair itself. But both the hair and Snape were remnants of an era that, though it had shaped Draco in every possible way, it was better to forget, an era that was now over, thanks to –

"Ah, Mr. Potter. How kind of you to join us," said Slughorn, who was now standing in the front of the room.

The door had been thrust open suddenly, startling Draco and revealing a disheveled Harry Potter. His black hair was as tousled as ever, his glasses were askew, and he was panting lightly. He had clearly run to class.

"Sorry I'm late, Professor. I overslept."

"Yes, well." Slughorn gestured for Potter to sit down.

Draco smirked. Just a couple years before this flimsy excuse would have been enough to see Slughorn bending over himself to pardon his prize student. But those days were over, and had been since the spring of their sixth year. From one day to the next Potter had been demoted from Golden Boy to being brusquely tolerated. It hadn't escaped Draco's notice that this change in their student/teacher relationship happened to coincide with a significant decline in Potter's Potions performance. Neither did Draco's attuned ears miss the whispers that the shift had to do with Potter being caught using some book to gain advantage, though Draco had never gotten the full story.

Potter scanned the room, looking for a free seat. His eyes eventually fell to the empty seat next to Draco, and he shot an earnest look of appeal towards Slughorn. Draco took a surreptitious glance around for himself and – yup, his was the only empty seat in the room. Figures. And of course, the great Harry Potter would not care to sit next to a suspected former Death Eater. Not that it ever came to that, of course. The simple fact that he was Draco Malfoy was enough to deter Potter, alliances aside.

Potter's appeal was to no avail. Slughorn gestured again that Potter should take the seat. Potter glanced at someone else in the room – probably the Weasley girl, whom Draco had spotted – before turning back to the professor.

"But, sir—" he protested.

"Now, Potter," said Slughorn, impatient.

Jaw clenched, Potter obeyed and sat down stiffly next to Draco. Draco bristled. He hadn't been good enough for the friendship of the Boy Who Lived back when they were young, and now it appeared he wasn't even fit to be the desk-mate of the Chosen One.

"Your desk-mate will be your partner for the term," Slughorn announced.

Potter fixed Draco with a swift glare, as if this arrangement had been his doing.

Well, then. Make that not fit to be the Potions partner of the Chosen One.

To be fair, allowed Draco, continuing his interrupted line of thought, while Potter's aversion to Draco had been unjustified back as eleven-year-olds it was now not without cause. But still. That he, Draco Malfoy, could be unworthy to share space or words with one such as Potter... Draco felt the under-layers of his skin heating with the ire of the familiar rivalry.

"To refresh your minds, I would like you to work with your partner to classify the items on this list," Slughorn flicked his wand and a list of about a hundred words filled the blackboard, "into categories according to use, species, location, properties... whatever you choose. Marks will be received for the efficiency and precision of your categorization, so choose wisely."

How banal, thought Draco. Yet he straightened in his seat to face the task. Daft professor or not, Potions was still his favorite subject. He turned to Potter, who was leering at him.

"Still eager to be the teacher's pet, eh Malfoy? I thought that you only had a thing for Snape, but..." Potter shrugged, as if to signify he couldn't possibly predict the twisted preferences of Draco's mind.

"Sorry you couldn't partner with your girlfriend, Potter. Maybe if you were on time to class every once in a while..." he said, rather than dignifying Potter's comment with a rebuttal, "but our hero needs his beauty sleep, doesn't he? You do look especially well-groomed this morning, if I do say so."

"Shut it, Malfoy," spat Potter, his voice hot. "You don't know the half of it."

"Don't I?" Draco raised an eyebrow. "Care to enlighten me?"

Potter narrowed his eyes and knotted his lips. Draco expected him to change the subject again and avoid the provocation, and was so was taken aback when he instead said, "Ginny's not my girlfriend."

"Isn't she?" Draco asked with mock concern. "What a shame. I seem to remember her writing you such a lovely sonnet not too long ago... How did it go again? Oh, yes. '_His eyes are as green as a fresh speckled toad, his—_'"

"Boys," said Slughorn, pausing at their table, "stop bickering and get to work. Five points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin for being off task."

"Well done, Malfoy," Potter hissed, once Slughorn was out of earshot.

"I could say the same to you, Potter."

Potter's eyes narrowed. Something about the familiar action irritated and soothed Dracoat the same time.

"Now, I don't suppose you know how to go about categorizing these ingredients?" Draco absorbed Potter's indignant silence with smug satisfaction. "Ah, I thought as much."

"And I suppose you do?" huffed Potter.

"Naturally. Here, why don't you write and I'll dictate. That will probably be easier than making a charade of discussing the answers, and you'll at least look like you're assisting, though I'm sure my handwriting's far neater... ah, well. Can't be helped."

"Like Merlin I will, you—"

They were done with nearly half of the class to spare, and Slughorn grudgingly had to give them top marks. Potter simmered in silence for the rest of class, clearly resentful that Draco Malfoy had single-handedly gotten him the best marks he'd likely received since his falling out with Slughorn.

At least in this one thing, he was superior to Potter, Draco gloated.


	4. Tryouts

**CHAPTER THREE**

**Tryouts**

"_To love someone is to wish him life; to hate someone is to desire his death." - Unknown_

Bloody hell, Draco thought. That could have gone better.

Wasn't he going to try to treat Potter more civilly this year, as a silent "thank you" for what he'd done for Draco last spring? Wasn't he? He was. He owed Potter that, at least.

Draco had thought he would be able to do it, to treat Potter with cordial indifference and not needle him constantly. But then he'd sat next to the flesh-and-blood Harry Potter, with his messy hair and his wonky glasses and his pungent, freshly-washed fragrance and his clenched jaw and that damned scar ... and Draco's blood had boiled.

Damn Potter.

Draco sighed, gusty and self-indulgent. He never had been able to leave Potter alone.

"Draco, seriously, if you want to set Harry Potter on fire you should really just get up and use your wand. I don't think staring daggers at him is going to do anything but creep him out," chided Pansy, who was sitting across from Draco at lunch.

"Honestly, Pansy," said Draco, tearing his eyes from Potter to look at his sometimes friend. He immediately wished he hadn't when his eyes were filled with too-pink cheeks, a large mouth, and an uneven mop of dark hair that Pansy insisted was 'rocker chic' but which Draco thought was just ugly. If she wanted to master the I-can't-be-bothered messy/sexy look she should take lessons from Potter, Draco thought to himself, then immediately questioned his sanity for thinking such a ludicrous thing. "I am not trying to set Potter on fire. How juvenile."

Pansy tried to raise one eyebrow sardonically, but only succeeded in contorting her face. "Then what were you doing?" she asked.

"I was just thinking."

"Well, _I_ think you should stop."

"Pansy, just because one thought is plenty enough to get you through the day doesn't mean it's sufficient for the rest of us," Draco snapped.

"Well," Pansy huffed, looking stung, "you don't have to be so rude."

Draco felt a pang of guilt. He too often unleashed his pent up temper on Pansy. It wasn't her fault she was so ... daft. An apology hung on the tip of his tongue, but he refused to let it out. Instead, he regarded her with cool eyes.

Pansy dropped the bite she was taking back onto her plate and stood up. "I'm done. You can enjoy your Potter fetish in peace now," she announced, in what was surely intended to be a biting tone. However, Draco was unprovoked.

She pouted and stormed off like a petulant child. Draco rolled his eyes. She would be over it by dinnertime. He glanced back at Gryffindor table, but the seat his eyes sought out was pushed back from the table, empty.

Suddenly, Draco felt hollow and tired.

And very alone.

… & …

Harry surveyed the small crowd collected in front of him. There were a few familiar faces – Ginny winked at him and grinned excitedly – but between the unfamiliar players who'd been new last year and the new crop of Quidditch-star-wannabes, most of the faces were unfamiliar.

And ... feminine. Was it just him, or had more girls than usual shown up today?

"All right, everybody," began Harry, calling the assembled group to attention. The action was mostly unnecessary, however, as many of the hopefuls already had their gazes fixed on Harry's legendary face with expressions of rapt fascination. "It's nice to see so much enthusiasm for the house team this year."

There was a stifled giggle from a dark-haired girl on Harry's left and he paused until it was quiet again.

"Let's channel that enthusiasm and take the House Cup for Gryffindor, shall we?" he continued.

The crowd erupted in a round of cheering and hollering, complete with some jumping and waving of arms.

"Okay, the way this will work is quite simple – a process of elimination. I will group you into small mock teams, or squads. Each squad will play a short game against another squad. Then I will choose the best players from those two squads to form another squad, who will then play the best players from the other two squads. And so on. Everybody understand?"

There was a chorus of nodding.

"Good. So. Beaters over there, please, and Chasers there, and Keepers ... right there," said Harry, pointing to corresponding spots on the pitch. The crowd dispersed.

Harry was taking careful note of who was going where when someone sidled up to him. He turned and found himself looking into a female face that was much too close to his for comfort. He took a step backward and was able to identify the female as the one who'd giggled during his speech. She had a simpering, coy grin on her lips. Great.

"Hi, Harry," she ... well, cooed. There was really no other word for the stretched, suggestive lilt she gave his name.

"Oh, er, hi," he replied, nonplussed. What could she possibly want?

"I'm not sure which position to try out for. I was wondering – could you check me out and tell me which position you think I have the best body for?" She preened, stretching her body into what she clearly considered her best angle.

Bloody hell. Scratch that last question, he got it – unfortunately.

"Er," he said, "what do you usually play?"

"Well, I'm told I have the build of a Seeker. You know – lithe, flexible ... What do you think?"

Harry thought this girl had probably never played Quidditch in her life. In fact, uncharitably, he couldn't help but wonder why she was wasting his time. "Actually, I play Seeker, so ..."

"Oh! Of course you do! How silly of me." She batted her eyelashes and giggled.

Was that supposed to be attractive? Harry sighed.

"Well..." He realized he didn't know her name.

"Georgia," she supplied, leaning close as if she were divulging a personal secret. "Georgia McDonnell."

"Right. Georgia. I think you'd best try out as a Chaser." It was the safest option, anyway. It was hard to do anyone bodily harm as a Chaser. Except maybe yourself.

"You think?"

"Mhmm. Definitely."

"Okie dokie!" she said brightly. "You'll be watching?"

"Er, yes." It was generally easier to judge flying with one's eyes open, not closed.

"Brilliant." Georgia beamed, giving Harry a full wattage smile dripping with coquetry before skipping off toward where the Beaters were gathered. Harry shook his head.

"Georgia!" he called.

She spun around, her eyes wide with eagerness.

He pointed to the group on his left. "Chasers are over there."

"Of course! Yes." She giggled and changed direction.

The girls all flew so badly Harry was beginning to think they were Confunded, because he couldn't think of any other reason why a group of such bloody awful flyers would think they had a shot at making the team. It took a while to get rid of them due to the format of the tryouts, but after a couple rounds they were all gone except Ginny, and Harry was able to get down to business.

In the end the team consisted of himself, Ron, Ginny, a set of fourth-year twins as beaters (who reminded him fiercely of Fred and George), a lanky second-year, and a shy but agile sixth-year serving as the final two Chasers. All in all, it wasn't a bad lot. They had promise, at least.

"How were tryouts?" Hermione asked at dinner.

"Well, once I'd gotten rid of all the bloody girls it went pretty well. It should be a fair team. Ron and Ginny are back, and—"

"All the girls?" interrupted Hermione.

"Yeah. Nearly thirty girls showed up, all _atrocious_ flyers..."

Ron chimed in. "Did you see that chit Georgia almost fall off her broom trying to catch the Quaffle? Or when she tried to pass it and it fell twenty meters short and dropped to the ground?" Ron chortled. "Oh, or when she was so busy ogling Harry that the Quaffle hit her in the face!" Ron dissolved into spasms of laughter.

Harry's lips twitched at the memory.

"I think she fancies you, Harry," said Ginny mischievously, shimmying against him suggestively.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at Harry, amusement crinkling at the corner of her eyes and mouth.

"Aw, shut it, Ron." Harry thrust the prongs of his fork toward his friend. "I don't know what they were on about," he whined, turning back to Hermione. "They can't have honestly thought they'd make the team!"

"Of course not!" Hermione said, laughing.

"What would you know about it?" Harry was beginning to get a bit annoyed, feeling as if his friends were laughing at the girls' behavior at _his_ expense.

"They're your _admirers_, Harry," Hermione explained. "They came just because you're the captain. They wanted to catch your attention."

"Well they certainly did that," he muttered. And not in a good way. Honestly. Why did girls come up with such completely daft ideas? It was no wonder he preferred ...

"Harry Potter, the Irresistible One," teased Ginny, rubbing her nose against Harry's cheek affectionately. "We girls are utterly helpless against your charms!" She swooned dramatically against Harry's chest in a mock faint, then peered up at him, giggling. Harry tweaked the tip of her nose and smiled, unable to remain terse in the face of his best friend's antics.

When he looked up Hermione's smile was gone, replaced with that funny expression again – parts confusion, skepticism, and calculation.

"Well, except for you," she said to Ginny.

Ginny sat up. "Except for me what?"

"You're resistant to his charms, apparently. I mean, you broke up with him. Right?"

Ginny glanced at Harry, unsure what to say.

"She didn't break up with me," clarified Harry, feeling slightly uneasy. He didn't like people prying into the particulars of his and Ginny's breakup, something Hermione was doing more and more of lately. He wasn't ready for anyone to know the truth. "It was mutual."

"Right," Ginny agreed.

"It's just," Hermione looked back and forth between the two of them, "I don't see why you broke up in the first place. You get on so well, even still. It doesn't make sense." She furrowed her brows. More than anything else, Hermione hated things that did not make sense, and would pick at them persistently until they did.

Ginny and Harry exchanged a look of panic.

"Well, it was because ..." began Ginny.

"It was just that ... we didn't ..." Harry picked up as Ginny trailed off.

"You see ... it was that we, well we ..."

"Er ... you know ..." He should be better at fabricating excuses by now, Harry thought. In fact, he should have planned something for this exact moment.

"It was that, well, Harry preferred ..." Harry shot Ginny a look. "That is, we preferred ..."

"... other people," Harry concluded. "You see?"

Hermione looked utterly nonplussed. "Not really, no."

"Oh," said Ginny, stumped.

There was really only one reason for the breakup and it was quite straightforward, but Harry was adamant that only Ginny know, for now.

"Are you sure that ..." It was Hermione's turn to trail off vaguely. She appeared to be deciding whether to ask whatever it was she was wondering. "You're actually over?"

Ginny let out a cough of surprised laughter.

"Um, yes," answered Harry. "We really are."

Hermione continued to look skeptical. And really, Harry supposed, he could see where she might get the wrong impression. After all, if one didn't know the one crucial element of their relationship that made it indisputably platonic, he supposed it could look very much like couple-hood indeed. In fact, if things were different Ginny would be at the very top of Harry's "potential girlfriend" list. But that's not what he wanted. A girlfriend, that is.

They tended to clash with the general principles of being gay.

It had been a weird thing for Harry to realize. For a while, he wasn't even convinced it was true. But there were several instances of unintentional daydreaming and ogling that left him little room for doubt. And the more he thought about it, the more okay with it he was. It wasn't exactly as if he could do anything about it anyway. Harry had always been good at accepting situations which were not ideal and making the best of them.

It didn't hurt that boys were so attractive.

No, Harry was quite content with his orientation. He just didn't think other people would be quite so content with it, which was why he'd made Ginny swear to secrecy. Actually, he'd made her make the Unbreakable Vow not to tell anyone, which might have been a little bit drastic... Nevertheless, his secret was safe until he decided otherwise.

"If you say so," Hermione said. "Are you sure there isn't any more to it than that?"

Ginny shot Harry a look that said clearly, "Tell them! Tell them now!" but she couldn't, of course, say any more.

Harry ignored her. "Yup," was all he said, "that's it. We just don't fancy each other like that anymore."

"Harry doesn't think I'm pretty or vain enough to be his girlfriend," whined Ginny melodramatically. "He wanted me to swallow helium so that my voice would sound more high-pitched and frivolous, but I told him, I said: 'Harry. I'll wear excess makeup for you, and false eyelashes, and I'll even bathe in flowery perfume, but swallowing helium? I have to draw the line somewhere.' And he said that if that was the case, then I just wasn't woman enough for him and he would go find himself a real girl." She shrugged and sighed mournfully. "He has such high standards. I wonder who could ever hope to be good enough for him? A fairy, perhaps?" She added this last bit with an impish smirk for Harry's benefit.

Harry scowled and swatted her. She laughed.

Hermione was sliding back into amusement as well. Ginny's silly monologue had distracted her, and for the moment, at least, she was placated.

"Why is Harry's love life suddenly the most fascinating thing we could discuss?" Ron complained.

"It's certainly more fascinating than yours," Ginny quipped.

Ron blushed. "Like yours is so much more exciting," he shot back. "At least I have Hermione."

"Excuse me?" interrupted Hermione in a dangerous, prissy voice. "What did you say?" She scooted back from the table and stood up in a huff.

"Oh, Hermy," Ron said, in an entirely different tone of voice – remorseful and slightly panicked, "that's not what I meant. You know I love you!" he called after her, following her away from the table and out of the Great Hall.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "He is _so_ not mature enough to have a girlfriend."

Harry laughed. Ron did make a humorously large number of blunders in his relationship. Luckily Hermione was, for whatever reason, just as besotted with him as he was with her and always forgave him.

"Harry," said Ginny, getting serious again, "you have to tell them."

Harry's grin disappeared.

"I know," he sighed heavily. "I know." But not yet.


	5. Civility

**Chapter Four**

**Civility**

"_Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. / Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, / O anything of nothing first create, / O heavy lightness, serious vanity, / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms." - Shakespeare_

When Draco entered the Potions classroom a few minutes early, Potter was already there, sitting idly at their shared desk. He was clearly trying to avoid Slughorn's further wrath by overcompensating for his tardiness the previous lesson.

"Good morning," said Draco, as he slid into his seat.

Potter nodded affably, if a little clumsily since his chin was nestled in the palm of his hand, and mumbled, "Morning."

Draco suppressed a sudden smile that welled up from an unfamiliar corner of his chest. So, apparently, Potter wasn't a morning person; he appeared to be still more asleep than awake. His lips sagged in a soporific pout and his eyes were unfocused, like two dark green smudges of oil pastel on a clear ivory canvas, outlined in the thick ink of his eyelashes. Draco realized, feeling indistinctly queer about it, that he was staring at them, so he spoke again to distract himself.

"Did you sleep better last night?" he asked Potter.

"Wha—hmm?"

"You said you overslept last lesson. I thought you must have slept badly."

Potter blinked forcefully several times as if by doing so he could force the conversation to make more sense. "Yeah, nightmares." He yawed. "Happens a lot." Potter's speech was clunky and disconnected and made Draco think his head hadn't quite caught up with his mouth yet.

So, Potter suffered from nightmares, too, Draco thought, reflecting on his own nightmares. The ones that plagued his sleep at night and lurked in the back of his thoughts during the day, not always on his mind but dancing around the edges of his consciousness. Nightmares of cold eyes and colder voices, of burdens far too heavy to carry and dark figures demanding he do so anyway, of being chased by a hot red sea, and of death – always death, hovering everywhere as if it composed the very particles of the air. Nightmares that reminded him of his flaws and his failures and, even worse, the things he hadn't failed at. Nightmares that made him want to tear himself apart, peel off his skin layer by layer, do anything to quell their shrill disquiet and release himself into the nothing-land of pure, undiluted darkness.

It wasn't so surprising that Potter should have nightmares too; he'd seen at least as much as Draco had during the war, and that was enough to scar a mind.

"But you're early today, so I figured you must have slept better last night," Draco continued, as if his thoughts hadn't just been swallowed by a black hole.

"Mm ... yeah. No nightmares." The softly smudged quality of Potter's sleepy features was beginning to sharpen as Potter became more alert.

"Is it the war?" Draco asked softly, his sympathy – or was it empathy? – getting the best of him. A dry laugh sounded in his mind as the thought struck him that Potter probably didn't even believe Draco to have an ounce of empathy or sympathy in him, much less enough to get the best of him. But there you go. Potter didn't know everything about him. Not by a long shot. "I relive it all the time, too ... every night."

Suddenly, Potter's newly clear eyes narrowed suspiciously and instead of answering Draco's question he spat, "What are you playing at, Malfoy?"

"Playing at?" The question surprised Draco. He'd been getting so comfortable in his and Potter's casual, albeit short, exchange that the sudden switch to antagonism felt like whiplash. How could that have happened so fast? That he'd already forgotten the patterns of their arguments?

"Asking me how I slept. Why would you do that? What do you care?"

"I was only being polite, Potter." Fortunately, the choreography of their bickering also came back quickly. If Draco had been a Muggle, he might have compared it to riding a bike.

"Polite," Harry repeated.

"Yes, polite. You are familiar with the word? The concept?" Draco said, a spark of irritation igniting his pulse. Why must Potter be so obtuse? Draco was trying to be civil, damn it!

"And why would you want to be polite to me?" Potter pressed, his suspicious expression unabated.

"Do I need to have some kind of secret motive for making conversation?" Draco asked, in an attempt to sidetrack this line of conversation. He didn't have an answer he was comfortable giving Potter.

"Yes," said Harry flatly.

For a moment Draco glared at Potter, his temper bubbling. Then he spoke. "Fine. I just thought I could be somewhat more civil to the person to whom I owe my life."

Potter opened his mouth, then closed it, the corner turning downwards as he processed this. Absently, Draco thought about mentioning Potter's resemblance to a tree frog again, as he had first year after Potter's spectacular open-mouth catch of the Snitch. But he decided it might be rather irrelevant to the argument at hand.

"A simple 'thank you' would have sufficed," Potter said at last.

"I never said I was grateful to be alive," Draco said, in a low, dark voice. And it was true. Too true. Why did he tell Potter that? "Only that I respect the value of a life debt."

Before Potter could respond, Slughorn rapped his wand against his desk to start class, and Draco was saved from having to follow up his statement with ... with an explanation? But what would Potter care about the value Draco placed on his own life?

"We're going to be brewing a nasty little potion today," Slughorn informed them. Draco heard half the class shift nervously in their seats. "Nocturna Mortem. Can anyone tell us what it is?"

With his peripheral vision, Draco saw Potter glance at him, probably expecting him to know the answer. Slughorn, too, looked at Draco expectantly. But Draco had never heard of Nocturna Mortem before.

"No? Pity. Nocturna Mortem is known as the Draught of Sleeping Death – for that is what it is. A couple drops of this potion and the drinker will fall into a sleep so absolute it is a perfect imitation of death." Draco sat up a little straighter in his seat. Absolute darkness? Imitation of death?

Next to him, he heard Potter mutter something about "Romeo and Juliet." It didn't make any sense to Draco, so he ignored it.

"But be wary," Slughorn continued, "this is a very subtle potion. If brewed improperly or overdosed, the draught can be fatal. That being said, this is an advanced class and I trust you to brew this potion with the utmost care. I don't expect any of your brews to be perfect, which means that they will all be dangerous." Slughorn gave the class a stern look that was somewhat diminished by emerging from the pudgy creases of his features. "Now, get to work!" He twitched his wand towards the blackboard and a piece of chalk began writing out the directions in perfectly proportioned print.

Draco turned to Potter. "Considering your history with Potions, Potter, I think it would be best if you left the brewing to someone more, ah, qualified," he said, abandoning his efforts at politeness for the moment. Being snarky was so much more fun, anyway, and Potter was the only person who could keep up with his wit, matching him taunt for taunt. "We wouldn't want the Chosen One to be done away with by a splash of elixir gone bad, now would we? You can read the recipe out loud and fetch ingredients for me."

"No, we wouldn't. Much better to let it take out the disgraced Malfoy Heir," Harry retorted, "since there's no further use for him. That is, if you consider being the puppet of more powerful men being of use in the first place. Which, personally, I don't."

Draco scowled.

"Don't go getting your panties in a twist, Malfoy, you have a potion to brew. What shall I fetch for you?" simpered Harry, an overdramatic picture of innocence.

"Chamomile leaves, roots of asphodel and hellebore, and a boomslang skin," said Malfoy, nostrils flaring. "Please," he added, deciding a smidgeon of politeness couldn't hurt after all.

"Fine," said Potter, turning on his heel. "I thought we were brewing an elixir of death, not tea," Draco heard him mutter as he headed for the cupboard.

Draco turned his attention to the board. Slughorn was right; it was a very tricky potion. And quite ... Draco searched for the right word: fascinatingly, suitably, satisfyingly powerful.

Draco quickly set up the cauldron and arranged the implements they would need. Potter wasn't back yet when he finished, and Draco began to fidget. He stared at the instructions and a sort of idea itched on the surface of his skin. He'd never be able to remember such a complicated potion in enough detail to replicate ... er, study it later. So Draco grabbed his quill and a spare bit of parchment and began copying down the recipe in his elegant, thin cursive.

A throat was cleared next to Draco. He dropped his quill, startled as if he'd been caught doing something wrong, and dots of ink splattered across the page. Relax, he told his body, it's only Potter.

"Um, what are you doing?" asked Potter.

Draco's body wasn't relaxing. "I'm just copying down notes," he said.

"Is that really necessary?"

No. Not for normal class work, at least. "Yes," replied Draco, wishing Potter would have the decency to look a little anxious. Draco was anxious, after all, and what did he even have to be anxious about? Potter, on the other hand, was ... neglecting his studies. Yes, neglecting his studies by not taking down notes. He should be anxious indeed. "You know, for study purposes?"

Potter regarded him blankly.

"Oh," said Draco disdainfully, "I forgot who I'm speaking to. I guess you wouldn't know."

Much to Draco's discomfort, Potter did not react to the jab at his intelligence. Instead, he fixed Draco with a steady gaze, as if Draco's thoughts were written across the skin of his face and Potter was reading them carefully. Draco avoided looking straight at those infamous eyes, oddly worried about what could happen if he did. What was so worthy of scrutiny about an interest in sleeping draughts, anyway? It wasn't exactly news that Draco was fascinated by Potions. Was Potter remembering Draco's comment about not being grateful to be alive? No, that was just paranoid. Potter wouldn't care.

"Whatever," said Potter finally, blinking. Was that his first blink since he'd started scrutinizing Draco, or was it just the first one Draco had noticed? "Let's just brew this thing, okay?"

"Fine by me," agreed Draco.

He set Potter to work slicing the roots of asphodel and hellebore. He, meanwhile, began the more delicate work of peeling the boomslang skin. It was easy to become absorbed in his work and ignore the infuriating boy next to him. That is, until Potter interrupted Draco's concentration with a curse.

"Shit!"

Draco turned towards his partner with a quip ready about watching his language, there were ladies present (he could already hear Potter's rejoinder: "the only lady here is you, Malfoy"), but his words died on his tongue at the sight of Potter's blood.

Potter was clutching one hand in the other to muffle the bleeding, but a couple bolder lines of blood trickled between his fingers and slipped to the table, drip by drip.

"Shit, Potter! What happened?" Draco exclaimed, debating inwardly the sudden impulse to lunge forward and assist Potter. The desire was tempered by Draco's vague queasiness and the loud voice in his brain that had begun chanting, "He's Harry Potter. Remember him? The annoying prick you wouldn't assist practically under pain of death?"

"Cut myself ... accident," murmured Potter, exposing the wound to take a closer look. There was a deep cut running from the inside of his thumb all the way across his palm. A wave of lightness swept through Draco's head and he felt like he could float or fall backwards into the air. He was torn between fainting at the sight of it and, again, the inexplicable and foreign yet hard-to-ignore urge to ... he wasn't even sure. To take Potter's hand in his own and force the bleeding to stop so that shocked mask would slide off of Potter's face instead of splintering into fragments of pain as it was doing now.

"Oh, Merlin," said Draco, hardly breathing, "bloody hell."

He was just deciding to give into the fuzzy faintness blurring the edges of his vision when he realized Potter wasn't doing anything but staring at his hands. No one else in the classroom had noticed the accident yet and Draco couldn't find it in his voice to cry out, so he did the only thing he could – he fumbled for his wand.

He stepped closer to Potter to get a better look, and murmured a cleaning spell to clear off the blood. He stuttered a little and had to repeat the spell, but then the blood was gone and Draco could see the wound clearly. Honestly, it wasn't so bad, and Draco suspected he might feel a bit silly later for overreacting. He spoke a simple healing spell and watched as the lips of the cut sealed smoothly shut once more.

Draco reached out and took Potter's previously injured hand in his. He ran a finger across the palm to assess his work. It was flawless – scar-free and soft. Very soft, Draco corrected himself, running his finger across the skin again.

"Are you okay, Pott—" he began, stopping when he looked up and his eyes were caught by Potter's, which were wide and staring straight at him, "–er?" he finished, his breath oddly strangled in his throat. Then Potter's eyes darted to the left of Draco's face, looking behind him.

"Excuse me?" said Slughorn, who was now standing next to them, appraising them with an odd expression. The three of them looked down at Potter and Draco's clasped hands, Draco feeling as if it wasn't even his own hand he were seeing, before Draco dropped Potter's hand and stepped away, clearing his throat.

"What's going on here?" Slughorn asked.

"Potter cut his hand, so I was just healing it for him, sir," said Draco.

"I see. Well, it looks fine to me. So please get back to work. Your cauldron is boiling."

Draco hurried back to the cauldron, cursing under his breath. The cauldron wasn't supposed to boil until they were ready to add the chamomile leaves...

"Malfoy," Potter hissed.

"What?" asked Draco, straightening and turning back to face Potter.

"You are _not_ allowed to be nice to me."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Why ever not?"

"Because. It's – it's ..."

"Glad to see you are still in possession of your expansive vocabulary, Potter."

"It's unnerving!" Potter burst out.

"Unnerving?" repeated Draco.

"Yes. You are familiar with the word, are you not?" said Potter, imitating Draco's earlier remark.

Draco nodded absently. Unnerving. He quite liked the sound of that. Draco, unnerving. Potter, unnerved by Draco Malfoy. Yes, he liked the sound of that quite a lot indeed.

...&...

The air above the cauldron was beginning to waver with heat. Harry could feel sweat beading on his forehead and sneaking out from under his armpits to trickle down his arms.

Harry watched as Malfoy, who was even closer to the cauldron bent over it as he was, shrugged off his outer robe to relieve the heat. Underneath, he was wearing snug black trousers that seemed to have been tailor-made to accentuate Malfoy's fit legs – and they probably were, Harry realized – and a thin black sweater that did equally good things for his torso and arms. In fact, without his robe on to obscure his body, Harry was able to notice – nay, appreciate – that Malfoy was, well he was ...

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No! There would be no finding Draco Malfoy attractive. Period.

He's Draco Malfoy, you git! Harry mentally yelled at himself. Gay or not, Malfoy is your nemesis, remember? He's a former Death Eater, and a complete prat! A bloody git! A wanker! No. Don't think about wanking. He's arrogant and prejudiced and selfish and snide and ... and ... attractive. Damn. Blast and bloody fucking damn.

Malfoy stood up and glanced at Harry. "What are you standing there like an idiot for? You're not still in shock over that silly cut are you?" he sneered, waving a hand in front of Harry's face.

"No," Harry snapped, and Malfoy pulled back.

"Okay. Then can you please pass me those roots you were slicing before you tried to cut off your hand? Thanks."

What are you thinking? Harry demanded of himself as he passed the roots to Malfoy. Staring at Malfoy like an idiot, he concluded, echoing Malfoy's assessment. Blast. You know things are wrong when something Malfoy says about you is right.

Harry wasn't sure how he made it through the remainder of class, he was so distracted by the effort of trying to force his mind to think of nothing but Potions that he couldn't string together a single coherent thought about the subject. It was fortunate that Malfoy was so absorbed in the brewing, needing Harry just to chop and pass things.

It was Malfoy's fault Harry had cut his hand in the first place, throwing him off with that civility business. And then he'd bloody held Harry's hand! And then on top of it all he had to go and be attractive... Honestly, it was all too much for one mind to take in the space of a single lesson. No wonder he had no capacity left for Potions. It wasn't as if he had all that much for the subject to begin with.

Harry was relieved when Slughorn announced that time was up and began inspecting the students' efforts.

Malfoy hurriedly stirred the black surface of the liquid a few more times before stepping back as Slughorn approached and leaned over the cauldron, the creases of his face leaking sweat from the heat of the steam. He seemed to be sniffing the hot air. He, too, stirred the potion a few times, ladling a spoonful out and pouring it back in, before speaking. "Excellent effort, Mr. Malfoy," he said, ignoring Harry. Though that was fair, Harry supposed, seeing as Malfoy had done all the real work. "It is nearly perfect." Malfoy preened. "But then, I wouldn't have expected perfection your first time around, naturally. No, no, quite well done indeed."

Malfoy's lips curled into that infuriating smug smirk of his. Yes, infuriating, Harry had to reprimand the gay part of his mind that had suddenly gone traitor. It's infuriating, not sexy. _Not sexy._

The moment Slughorn's back was turned, one of Malfoy's slender hands whipped a glass vial from his pocket and slid it across the surface of the liquid, filling it, then capped it and slipped it back into his pocket.

The movement was so swift and smooth, and Harry was so distracted by his thoughts, that Harry wasn't even positive it had really happened. He had only caught the last blur of the pale hand, and only out of the corner of his eye.

He opened his mouth to say something, but decided he'd made enough of a fool of himself for one day without adding false accusations to the list. And then Slughorn dismissed them and Malfoy disappeared without another word.

Harry gathered his things more slowly, emptying the cauldron with a wave of his wand, before heading toward the door. Suddenly, his arm was caught in a tight squeeze between two small and very feminine hands. The fingernails were an alarming shade of pink that had the unfortunate effect of reminding Harry of Umbridge.

"That was a steamy class, wasn't it, Harry?" purred Georgia.

Bloody hell. Georgia was in this class? One more reason to look forward to Potions, then, thought Harry darkly, as if he didn't have enough already. "Oh, er, yeah. The potion was quite ... steamy."

"I just love a good steam sometimes," Georgia sighed happily. "It's so good for your skin."

"Um, I didn't know we had Potions together," said Harry.

"Oh! Well, we didn't. But I was talking to your friend ... oh, what's her name? With the red hair?"

"Ginny?"

"Yeah! Ginny! Anyway, so I was talking to Ginny and she was telling me how you just _adore_ Potions and how it's your favorite class. So I thought, well, if Harry likes it so much, maybe I oughtn't give it up. Maybe I'm missing something fantastic!" Oh, he was going to kill Ginny... "You don't really need it to become a Seer," Georgia frowned slightly, "but it can't hurt, can it?"

Merlin. Divination, too? What a prize this Georgia was. "Oh, I don't know, I suppose not. But it's really not all that brilliant. I mean, I don't think you should take it on my account..." Merlin, just go away.

"Really?" Georgia scrunched up her face. "I thought that potion today was pretty brilliant. Nocturna Matata or something? It's just like sleeping beauty!"

"Er," said Harry, "I suppose so."

"And we're in it together! That should be fun, too! Poor you, though, stuck partnering with Malfoy. That's really rotten. I don't think it's a fair punishment just for oversleeping, do you?"

They had walked from the Potions classroom all the way up to the Great Hall and were now approaching the Gryffindor table.

"Not really. Uh, look, Georgia. I have to go – my friends are waiting for me," Harry said with relief, pointing to where Ron and Hermione were sitting.

"Oh," Georgia's face fell, "all right. Bye then, Harry!"

Harry turned to go.

"It was lovely talking with you!" Georgia called after him.

When Harry sat down across from his friends Ron was very unsuccessfully trying to hold back a snigger.

"Oh, shut up," said Harry.

"Was that Georgia?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah."

"She's not so bad." Hermione cocked her head, evaluating Georgia's perky, made-up form. "She's quite pretty, actually. Are you sure you're not being too harsh, Harry?"

"Hermione!" exclaimed Ron. "She's a nightmare! Honestly!" He shuddered dramatically.

"Well, all right ..."

"Trust me, Hermione. Georgia is _not _my type," added Harry. Not in any way, shape, or form.

"Okay, okay!" Hermione laughed.

"It's lucky you're nothing like her," said Ron. "That would definitely put a damper on things. Except for the pretty part. That you have in common. Only I would argue that you are much prettier than that chit."

Hermione blushed and the two of them leaned in for a soft, lingering kiss, after which they both smiled stupidly into each other's faces.

Harry watched from across the table, feeling separated from his best friends by more than a plank of wood. When would he have that? Would he ever? He averted his eyes then, unable to continue watching and desperate to look anywhere but at the magnetic display of love sitting across from him and wrenching his gut.

His eyes strayed out of habit across the familiar path to the Slytherin table, where they unexpectedly connected with another pair – grey, like irises had been colored in with a soft pencil. He and Malfoy both maintained the eye contact for a moment, just looking, before Malfoy turned his head to answer Pansy, who was all but tugging on his sleeve in her plea for his attention. Harry didn't see how Malfoy put up with her. She was so needy and clingy.

But what did he care who Malfoy did or didn't put up with?

It was only then that Harry realized that throughout the moment they'd held eye contact across the hall Harry hadn't felt the usual rancor. He had just felt ... calm. He searched for the usual resentment, the anger usually so ready to rise to the surface, but it was simmering somewhere unreachable inside of him and he was unable to kindle it to life.

If Harry was honest with himself (and he wanted to be – now that there was room in his life for things like truth he wanted to fill himself with them) Malfoy wasn't so much a menace anymore as a breath of fresh air. He didn't treat Harry like a ticking bomb that might explode or fall apart dramatically at any moment. Or like a kicked puppy that needed to be coddled back to happiness. He didn't offer unwanted opinions about how Harry should go about becoming normal. And he wasn't over-awed by Harry's celebrity or inflated heroism in what was fast becoming the legendary Battle of Hogwarts, either.

No, Malfoy treated Harry just as he always had: like a less-than-impressive excuse for a school rival.

It was almost a relief.

It was tiring, being the constant center of everyone's attention. Even when he was, for all intents and purposes, being left alone, the stares were so plentiful and probing that Harry could feel them like a finger continuously prodding at his skin. Even his friends weren't a respite, treating him with the care they would give damaged goods. It was beginning to drive him mad. He may have defeated Voldemort, saved the wizarding world, whatever, but he was still just a bloody normal person. Not a hero, not a legend. A teenage boy.

And only Malfoy treated him like one.

It was strange that before Harry had hated the belittling treatment he'd received from Malfoy, when he now found it so refreshing. Liberating, even. He didn't consider himself a hero, and it was draining to try to act like one all the time. He didn't have to do that around Malfoy. Malfoy wouldn't have tolerated it if he had. Not that Malfoy tolerated much about him either way...

Thinking of Malfoy reminded him of Potions, which reminded him of Georgia – and Ginny.

"Hey," he said, interrupting Ron and Hermione's efforts to out-grin each other, "have either of you seen Ginny? I need to have a word with her."

…&...

Across the hall, Draco Malfoy reached into his pocket and slid his fingers over the cool glass of the vial there. It was frustrating that Potter had interrupted him before he'd been able to copy down the recipe for Nocturna Mortem, but at least he'd managed to sneak a small vial of the stuff. He would have liked a chance to try again and perfect the concoction, but for his purposes, he supposed perfection wasn't really all that necessary.


	6. Proximity

**CHAPTER FIVE **

**Proximity**

"_Yet, love and hate me too / So, these extremes shall neither office do / Love me, that I may die the gentler way / Hate me, because thy love is too great for me." - John Donne_

Draco had his own room. As one of only two eighth-year Slytherin boys, he was an odd one out: there was no room for him and Goyle in any existing Slytherin dormitory, yet it was not worth Conjuring a new one just for two people. So he and Goyle were each given their own rooms. They were nothing like the luxury of the Slytherin common room, being two Transfigured broom cupboards, but they were snug and they were private. McGonagall had been apologetic as she'd explained the predicament to them at the start of the term, but Draco hadn't minded a bit. He'd always been a whore for privacy. And they still, of course, had access to the common room whenever they desired it.

It was to his room that Draco retreated after extracting himself from Pansy after dinner, an effort that had been almost more trouble than it was worth. Almost.

"Draco, darling, it's so early still!" She'd pouted. "Come back to the common room, won't you? We never see you anymore, and you know how the little ones adore you."

"I think you're confusing the past and the present, Pansy," Draco had drawled. "My name isn't worth a damn to Slytherins anymore. And the 'little ones' don't adore me; they're scared of me."

"Only because you insist on scowling and prowling around like you do! Honestly, you're starting to remind me of Professor Snape! But much more gorgeous," she added, batting her eyelashes and tilting her face toward Draco's. Draco rolled his eyes. As if he could be won over by a well-placed fluttering of eyelids and a clumsy compliment. Why did girls view such silly things as acceptable mediums of flirtation? Performed correctly, it was a much more subtle art, in Draco's opinion. "Anyway," she went on, "they _would _adore you if you were ever around, I'm sure!"

Draco sighed. "Pansy, I have a lot of –"

"– work to do," finished Pansy, imitating his bored drawl. "Yeah, I know. You always have work to do. Look, if you don't want to come to the common room, fine. But can you at least let me come see your room? I don't even know where it is, and I'm _dying_ to see it."

"I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Why not?"

"It's just ..." Why exactly was Draco opposed to this concept? Pansy proposed it at least once a week and Draco always refused. But what was the problem? The whole school, it seemed, already assumed they were going out. "We could get in a lot of trouble if we got caught."

"Filch hardly ever lurks around the dungeons, you know that. He's more terrified of the Bloody Baron than Peeves is. Come on, Draco! It'd be fun, you know it would," she said, in a voice that was as heavy-handed as a wink. Actually, Draco didn't know anything of the sort. But he wasn't about to admit that.

"Maybe so, but it's best not to risk it," he said smoothly. "I can't afford trouble this year, Pansy."

Pansy, perhaps placated by the exposure of the goody-goody tendencies he hid beneath his cool, devil-may-care exterior, had finally relented then. And he'd made a run for it.

Now Draco walked beyond the bare stretch of stone that concealed the Slytherin dormitories, and continued down the hallway. He turned a corner and there, on the right wall, was a pair of small paintings no bigger than a standard piece of parchment. Draco approached the one on the left and whispered, "Malkin's." The painting of an elegant female aristocrat with an ever haughty, bland expression (though Draco swore her eyes always smirked at him), spread out along the wall until it was about the size of a door. Then it went blank and Draco stepped through the wall.

The room inside was plain. There was a four-poster identical to those in the main Slytherin dormitories, a fireplace, a small table Draco used as a desk, an armchair with upholstery worn ragged by time and use, and a dresser. The grey stone walls were bare and windowless. There was also a small bathroom that opened to one side, Draco's favorite feature of the room. He'd always hated administering to his hygiene in the communal bathrooms. Something about the scenario had always made him vaguely uncomfortable, though he wasn't quite sure what it was.

Draco removed his black Hogwarts robe and flung it carelessly to the floor. He pointed his wand at the fireplace and murmured, "_Incendio_," pausing for a moment in front of the sanguine flames that appeared. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the glass vial. He held it up against the light. The glass caused the liquid within to shine dully, but the potion itself was so dark and opaque that it did not reflect light. It was like a black hole in that way, the only other thing Draco could think of that rejected the flickering attentions of light.

What had Potter muttered about the potion today? Something about Romeo and Juliet. Draco decided he would look into it; it sounded potentially intriguing, and Draco disliked the idea of Potter knowing something about Potions that he did not, however peripheral the connection.

Draco positioned the vial on the dresser, then stripped and inserted his lean, pale body into the thick wrappings of his bedcovers, wriggling to get warm. He had a clear view of the vial from his vantage point in bed, and stared at it, transfixed, for a long time before his eyelids began to droop and his head began to swim. He could feel the things of his nightmares gathering in anticipation at the brink between consciousness and unconsciousness, but his body's lust for sleep was too heady to ignore. So he sank deeper into the cocoon of his bed and succumbed.

… & ...

Harry was sitting by the lake, alone, watching the silent ripples of the water as the fingers of the wind teased it. There was an absolute stillness to the silence of the empty lawn, as if the very atoms of the air had ceased to vibrate.

Harry slid a palm across the surface of the lake as if to polish a smudged mirror, but only succeeded in disturbing the peace. A knot of consternation tightened in his chest. Why couldn't he smooth out the wrinkles?

A voice called out to him then, muffled by the stillness. "Harry!" It was familiar. A Weasley voice, Harry was certain. Ron, perhaps? Maybe Ginny, though the voice sounded too masculine.

Harry turned, but there was no one. The lawn remained undisturbed by any other signs of life. There was just Harry.

An opaque fog had descended. Harry felt as if he were lingering beside a forgotten castle of antiquity, vacant for hundreds of years.

"Harry!" called the voice again, closer this time. Harry stood up. He could now see a sort of shape approaching him from inside the fog.

"Ron?" he asked. The mystery Weasley laughed.

"Harry," came his name again. A different voice this time. Older, wiser, and slightly amused. It sounded a lot like Dumbledore ... but that couldn't be, could it?

"How's it going, Harry?" asked the red-headed imp that was emerging from the fog, which thinned the closer he came to Harry.

"Fred?" gasped Harry, his mind limping to catch up to his eyes.

"Well don't look so surprised! I might start to think you're not happy to see me!"

"But – but..."

"I'm glad to see you've returned to Hogwarts, Harry," said the second voice, still disembodied in the fog. A couple seconds later a being in deep blue robes, a long white beard, and half-moon spectacles materialized next to Fred. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.

"It's my home," Harry heard himself say, as if his mind and the rest of his body were separated by a layer of fog. "Where else would I go?"

Fred and Dumbledore stood only a few yards away from Harry on the damp grass, glowing gently as if some golden light source pulsed within them in the place of a heart. Harry wanted to go to them, but he was rooted to the spot.

"But how are you here?" he asked, bewildered. "Is there anyone else with you?"

In answer, yet another voice called his name. A voice dearer to him than those of his lost parents, because he had gotten the chance to know it, rely on it, before it was lost. The sound of it yanked a chord taut between him and the speaker, a chord of anxious elation so eager and desperate it was almost painful.

"Sirius!" he shouted, his voice ripping from his throat. All at once, he was no longer rooted to the spot. He was running, sprinting through the fog towards the murky shape that was his godfather.

"Harry," replied Sirius, "aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

Harry laughed, a loud sort of yell that was more like a sob.

Harry passed other figures in the mist – Lupin, Tonks, even Colin Creevey who snapped a photo of Harry's mad flight – but he couldn't spare them second glances in his desperation to see his godfather. The figures waved as he passed by.

"Sirius!" he called again in delight as Sirius began to solidify in front of him. He was almost there. "Sirius!"

Harry launched himself towards his godfather's open arms, but fell sickeningly forward through the fog instead, stumbling. Immediately his sharp anticipation twisted into a wrenching mess of loss and panic.

"Sirius!" he bellowed. His godfather had slipped backwards into the mist, disappearing as surely as he had behind the veil three years ago. He dissolved completely into the fog, as if he'd never been there at all. Harry's heartbeat in his chest was now the only sound to interrupt the ethereal stillness. "Fred? Dumbledore?"

The fog and the lawn and the lake began to fade into blackness around him. Harry spun wildly, looking for one last glimpse of a familiar face. Then the very ground beneath him disappeared and he was plummeting into an abyss of his own despair.

Harry woke up gasping erratically, yet unable to pull a thread of air into his lungs. As he began to come back to himself, he realized his face was mashed into his pillow, muffling his sobs. He was shaking and felt beaten, throbbing in some secret region deep inside of him where science had not yet penetrated or named.

He was still alone.

… & ...

Draco Malfoy had not felt this rested in a long time, and his unusually buoyant spirits reflected that. The same could not be said for Potter, who rushed into the classroom at the very last moment. On time, but just barely.

Potter looked awful. His features were haggard – the bags under his eyes seemed to be literally sagging under the weight of his exhaustion and were tinged a shadowy grey-blue like someone had smeared them with pencil lead. His skin was wan and pale and loose on his bones. Draco noticed for the first time how fragile Potter looked, like a balloon with the air let out. He looked like a haunted man, a man aged far beyond his eighteen years. Even his hair, that incorrigible hair, seemed weary, hanging limp instead of trying to dance away from his skull at all angles. Why hadn't he noticed this before? Draco wondered. It was as if the bad night's sleep (though nights' was probably more accurate) had robbed Potter of his usual facade of good-humor and exposed him for what he really was: a broken boy.

Draco knew a thing or two about being broken.

Slughorn began a lecture on the properties of wormwood, and Potter sat listlessly, not even pretending to listen as he usually did.

"Potter," Draco whispered, inclining his head ever-so-slightly towards Potter to avoid notice by Slughorn.

Potter turned to him, eyebrows raised in a silent inquisition of, "What?"

"Are you okay?"

Potter breathed in deeply and blinked. "No," he said, letting the air out in a gust, "not really."

Draco didn't know which was more disconcerting – the answer or the honesty. The honesty, he decided. The answer had already been evident even before he'd posed the question.

The minutes ticked by.

"Can anyone tell me what I would get if I combined a powdered root of asphodel with an infusion of wormwood?" prompted Slughorn. Really? Snape taught us this on the first day. Literally.

No one volunteered to answer.

"Anyone? Miss McDonnell, can you enlighten us?"

Upon examination, Miss McDonnell was a small, bouncy-haired Gryffindor who seemed utterly perplexed by hearing her name attached to a teacher's question. Draco turned to see her cheeks flush pink. He also saw Potter glance at the girl and grimace.

"Um," she said, "a potion?" Oh, Merlin. That didn't even deserve an eye roll.

Her partner giggled as if the girl had said something intentionally clever. The girl snuck a glance in Draco's direction, which confused Draco for a moment until he realized she was looking at Potter. Most glances did tend to go towards Potter these days. Unfortunately for her, Potter was looking determinedly toward the front of the classroom, so her gaze collided with Draco's cool stare instead. She looked away.

"A sleeping draught so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death," said Draco lazily, without raising his hand and before Slughorn could recover from the previous answer.

"Correct," said Slughorn. "But I wonder, could you identify what exactly makes this potion different from the one we brewed yesterday – Nocturna Mortem?"

"The effects of the draught are indefinite, revived only by the administration of the antidote, whereas a perfectly brewed Nocturna Mortem will last only proportionally as long as the amount of potion consumed."

"Precisely!" exclaimed Slughorn, his extremities wiggling in evident glee. "What you may not know," he said, addressing the class at large, "is that there is a poisonous variation of the draught, wherein there are two human components rather than the usual one: one the aggressor, and one the victim. The aggressor administers half the potion to his intended victim and consumes the other half himself, after adding a single hair from the victim's head. The result, then, is that the potion serves as a link between the two individuals, draining the victim's life force and imbuing it into the aggressor. Though it was no doubt originally composed for dark purposes, it is sometimes used more positively at St. Mungo's between a terminal patient and a redeemable one. Both parties consenting, that is. Now," he said, clapping his hands together conclusively, "I would like you to brew a Draught of Living Death. Take careful notes, as I will be expecting two feet of parchment comparing the procedures, qualities, and uses of the two potions."

There was a general chorus of sighing and moaning from Draco's classmates before they set to work. Draco was only bothered by the time it would take to pen two feet of parchment. The content itself was almost a formality. Other than a bit of research into the poisonous properties of the draught, the rest of the report he could practically write in his sleep. Ironic, that.

Potter got up to fetch the ingredients of his own accord, so Draco busied himself with setting up the cauldron. He glanced around the classroom and saw McDonnell's partner repeat her name sharply several times to get the girl's attention, so preoccupied was she by staring wistfully at ... Draco followed her gaze. Potter. Who was currently bending down to reach the bottom shelf, displaying a backside draped rather elegantly in the black folds of his robes. Draco snorted to himself. Of course.

"McDonnell's staring at you," he said when Potter returned a moment later, dumping the ingredients unceremoniously onto the table.

Potter darted a glance toward the girl then looked quickly back to Draco when he caught her eager gaze, which had followed him from the cupboard back to his desk. "Blast," he muttered, color rising faintly in his cheeks. It was the most animated Draco had seen him all morning.

"You know her?"

"Georgia? Yeah. She tried out for Quidditch," he explained. Draco tried unsuccessfully to swallow a surprised laugh, and even Potter's mouth turned up a little at the corner. "And now she follows me around like, I dunno..."

"A member of your harem of admirers?" concluded Draco archly. "How very celebrity of you."

"A harem, Malfoy? Really, I'd think that was more your thing than mine," Potter retorted, a flicker of life igniting behind his eyes.

"If it were, I'd prefer mine to have a bit more ... _brain_ behind their beauty."

"'Course," Potter agreed, dropping the sardonic tone of their banter, "but it's not like that."

"No?" Draco raised his eyebrows.

"Well, maybe. But I'd rather it wasn't. She just ... she thinks she knows me because I'm the 'hero,' as if that were some kind of character trait. She's enamored with an image she has of me, but that's just it – an image. It's insubstantial. It's like a ghost. No, it's even less than a ghost. It's like looking into the Mirror of Erised and seeing what you want most to see and thinking it's real," said Potter in a rush, like he'd been scripting this assessment and was now debuting it on Draco.

"The Mirror of what?" asked Draco, his conscious mind latching on to the most tangible point of confusion within Potter's rant while the rest of his mind tried to absorb the more interesting parts, filing them away for future review.

"Er, never mind," said Potter. "The point is ... well ..."

"That she's an insufferable tart?" said Draco bluntly, smirking.

Potter's eyes crinkled in surprised amusement and a small laugh bubbled up from his throat. "Yeah, exactly."

Draco's answering grin was sly.

"She thinks we're friends or something, but ..." The dubious glance Potter cast in her direction was priceless, "really, she's a dippy nightmare."

"I think she's got a little more than friendship in mind, Potter."

Potter blushed in earnest. "So I've gathered."

"I can't imagine what she sees in you, anyway," Draco teased, retreating back into familiar territory. "Harry Potter: the scrawny, wonky-haired, dim," Potter opened his mouth to argue, so Draco amended, "at Potions, at least," before continuing, "prat hero of the Mudbl—" Draco cut off and frowned.

"What did you just say?" queried Potter, looking more incredulous than aggressive.

"Nothing."

"You were about to say 'hero of the Mudbloods,' weren't you? But you stopped."

"So?"

"So ..." Potter cocked his head. "So it's different, that's all."

"A lot of things are different, Potter."

Potter looked at Draco for a moment, those intense eyes of his all the more vibrant for peering out of such an otherwise wan face, then nodded.

They got to work then, and conversation became 'crush this' and 'juice that' and 'pass the knife, will you?' Draco glanced occasionally over at Georgia because it was so amusing to watch her absently stirring the potion and ignoring her partner's increasingly impatient instructions as she stared intently at Potter, as if she could bewitch him simply with the power of her gaze.

Draco inclined his head toward Potter and murmured, "She's still watching you," all the while not taking his eyes off Georgia. Thus, he was perfectly positioned to see the way her eyes narrowed as he spoke quietly to his partner. Hmm.

"She is?"

Draco nodded.

"Bloody hell," Potter sighed.

Draco's mind was working quickly. He wondered ...

Draco scooted closer to Potter and leaned into him slightly as he reached across the desk to pick up a Sopophorous bean instead of just asking Potter to pass it, and let his eyes, which were still holding McDonnell's, sink to half-mast in a universal indication of seduction. The girl's eyes widened. Draco smirked. _Ah._

"What are you doing?" asked Potter, the turn of his head toward Draco having the effect of bringing their faces inches apart.

"Picking up this bean," said Draco, his voice oddly quiet.

"Oh." Potter's eyes locked with Draco's and Draco momentarily forgot he was doing this for McDonnell's benefit. Then he realized he was standing still with half his body pressed against Potter's for no apparent reason and stepped backwards. Potter turned back to what he was doing; the side-long glance he gave Draco when he thought Draco wasn't looking was the only indication that he was at all unsettled by what had just occurred.

So Potter's admirer felt threatened by Draco. Did she think Potter was a poof? Or that Draco was? That didn't even bear speculation. Of course she suspected Draco. His father had always bemoaned Draco's effeminate looks, hadn't he? And it was Draco's behavior that had widened her eyes. But Draco had been suspected of far worse things over the years, and the current situation offered too much entertainment value to be resisted. He could mess with Potter and drive the dippy McDonnell mad as well. It was a win-win situation, and, all things considered, Draco wouldn't mind a bit of harmless mischief. No, not at all.

Draco glanced at Potter, who was supposed to be powdering the asphodel, and dropped the knife he was using to slice the valerian roots. "No! Potter! What are you doing?"

"Um, grinding the asphodel?"

"Not like that you're not! You're ... you're squishing it! You're demolishing it! Reducing it to a pulp!" cried Draco.

"Why don't you do it then, if you're such a professional?" Potter's eyes squinted in annoyance.

Draco could have done just that – taken the asphodel from Potter and powdered it himself. But he remembered McDonnell and her widened eyes and decided this was too perfect an opportunity to pass up, even for the sake of a better Potions grade. Slughorn already thought Draco was brilliant; it was only Potter who had to worry about a substandard potion, especially as he would undoubtedly be the one blamed for the deficiencies.

"Here, Potter," Draco said as he moved to stand behind the other boy, reaching his arms around Potter's thin body to commandeer his hands, "like this." Potter was shorter than Draco, so Draco's chin wound up hovering near the hollow intersection of Potter's neck and shoulder, his words whispered right into Potter's ear. With Potter's hands clasped in his own, Draco moved them like a puppeteer, using them to powder the asphodel correctly. "See?"

Potter appeared to be frozen, his only answer the slightly disjointed intake and outtake of his breath.

"Potter?" Draco queried.

Just then, there was an explosion somewhere behind them. Draco dropped Potter's hands and stepped away, turning towards the sound and expecting the familiar sight of Longbottom's shocked, soot-covered face. Instead, it was McDonnell wearing the filthy face mask.

Draco was seized with a surprisingly convulsive fit of laughter. Oh, he was brilliant indeed. Bloody brilliant.

"Ash," Georgia stated in shock, her face dilated in a comically exaggerated expression of awe. "Not as good for your skin as steam."

"You are so _daft_, Georgia," whined her partner, who was clearly not only at wit's end but had jumped off entirely. "If you paid as much sodding attention to your work as you do to ..." The identity of Georgia's misguided attentions was muffled as the partner received a sharp elbow to the stomach, but Draco didn't need to hear it, anyway. He already knew. Oh, did he know. "Ouch, Georgia! Sod it! If you'd been paying any attention at all you wouldn't have knocked the whole bloody vial of Sopophorous beans into the cauldron!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Georgia lamented, "I was startled by something!" she wailed in self-defense. This sent Draco, who had been beginning to calm down, into a second fit of hysterics. He was pretty sure he knew just what had startled McDonnell...

… & ...

The entire Potions class' attention was riveted on Georgia and the drama she was currently the epicenter of, but Harry was staring at Malfoy instead, in complete stupefaction. He had never seen the ever-composed Slytherin laugh like this. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen Malfoy laugh, period.

"What the hell is so funny, Malfoy?"

"She made the potion explode!" Malfoy gasped between spasms of laughter. "She made the potion explode because she was so bloody busy ogling you!"

Harry frowned. "It's not that funny."

"Yes it is!" Malfoy chortled. "She almost pissed herself when I touched you, so she knocked those beans into her potion by accident and it exploded!"

"When you ... _that's_ what that was about? You did that on _purpose_?" cried Harry, indignant. That little around-the-body maneuver of Malfoy's had seriously tampered with his sanity. His body had been almost shivery with the unexpected proximity to what it had independently decided was an attractive male presence, while his mind had been determinedly chanting, "It's Malfoy, it's Malfoy, it's Malfoy," in an effort to keep his body in check. It had been a good thing Malfoy had been moving Harry's hands, really, because Harry hadn't even been able to think straight in the confusion.

Malfoy could only nod, he was so consumed by self-satisfied hilarity. For his part, however, Harry was completely incensed by mortification and couldn't decide whether he wanted to slug Malfoy or kill himself on the spot. He settled for turning coldly away from his hysterical partner and adding the now powdered asphodel to their cauldron.

"Aw, come on, Potter. It's at least a little funny, isn't it?" asked Malfoy, who was finally calm enough to straighten up, though he still had a hand pressed to his side.

"No."

"Honestly, I thought you had a better sense of humor than this. Did Voldemort shove his wand up your arse before he died or something? You were just saying how dippy she is; I thought you'd find this funny."

"Oh, so this was for my benefit, was it?" Harry spun to face Malfoy, who merely raised a single coy eyebrow. "You took advantage of what I told you!" Harry blustered. "You – you deceitful, slimy Slytherin!"

"I prefer cunning," interjected Malfoy, his mouth twitching.

"You tricked me! Into revealing ... things," Harry accused, not sure he'd actually revealed anything compromising, but feeling distinctly used and exposed nonetheless.

"Tricked you, Potter? I hardly needed to bother. You bloody _volunteered_."

Harry scowled.

"I don't know what you're so worked up about, anyway," Malfoy continued. "All you said was that McDonnell is a daft tart and, let's be honest," He cast a glance at Georgia, who was still dithering and fawning over her aggrieved partner, "I could've worked that much out for myself."

"You git," snarled Harry, unable to express his angry embarrassment any more eloquently than that. It wasn't about what he'd said about Georgia. It was that he couldn't help feeling like Malfoy had known exactly what his little stunt would do to Harry, even though, rationally, he knew that wasn't possible. Still. It was horribly vexing and discomfiting to be reduced to such a state by one's rival, even accidentally.

"You prat," Malfoy shot back casually.

"Bugger off," Harry grumbled, turning back to stir the contents of the simmering cauldron and urging the heat to release its grip on his cheeks.


	7. Eavesdropping

**CHAPTER SIX **

**Eavesdropping**

"_You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul." __- Julie de Lespinasse_

What was Malfoy's deal this year? Had his head gone wonky at some point in the war? It did happen, Harry knew. It had even been a close thing for him, at the lowest points of his spirit-breaking search for the Horcruxes. But Malfoy's behavior, though incongruous, wasn't exactly war-warped. It was just ... odd. First, there was the whole bit about wanting to be on civil terms with Harry, and now this ... this _game _he was playing. Harry's pulse was still subtly humming and hiccoughed with a little shot of adrenaline each time Harry accidentally replayed the sensation of Malfoy's arms around his body.

Was it just some kind of elaborate plot to mess with him? If it was, he ought to congratulate Malfoy on his resounding success. But that didn't quite fit, though it was the obvious answer. These new tactics for getting under Harry's skin weren't Malfoy's usual style – loud, snide, and public. They were something else entirely, which left Harry to wonder if there was, perhaps, some other motive behind these latest provocations, the unsettling shift in Malfoy's attentions.

But what, exactly?

Harry bit his lip, absorbed by his thoughts as he entered the seventh floor corridor.

"Harry!" squealed a female voice.

"Ah!" Harry cried, jumping, his pulse erupting like a gunshot. His glasses slid down his nose with the sudden movement, so he pushed them back up, taking a deep breath to calm down. "Oh, it's you, Georgia."

"Sorry," she said, having the courtesy, at least, to look bashful. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"S'okay," said Harry with a sigh.

"Fancy meeting you here, eh?" she said brightly.

"Er ... Georgia, we're outside Gryffindor tower," Harry pointed out, "where we both live."

"Well, still." She was not to be deterred. "So, are you heading down to lunch?"

This struck Harry as an odd question to ask someone who was currently walking upstairs, not down.

"No, I was actually heading back to my dormitory to drop some things off." He was meeting Ginny in the library soon and needed to trade his Potions things for his Transfiguration homework.

"I'll come with you! I need to get my, er ... gloves."

"Gloves?"

"Oh, you know," she said, gesturing vaguely, "it gets chilly."

"Right, of course."

They continued down the corridor and were now face-to-face with the Fat Lady.

"Plumeria," said Harry, and then they climbed through the portrait hole into the common room. It was quiet, empty save for a crackling fire in the hearth; the rest of their fellow Gryffindors were down in the Great Hall eating lunch.

… & …

Well, all but one of them.

Hermione sat curled up in her favorite armchair in front of the fireplace, reading her Muggle Studies textbook. Her chair faced away from the portrait hole, but in the empty common room she clearly heard the portrait hole open to admit Harry. He was in conversation with Georgia McDonnell. Reluctantly, from the slightly pinched tone of his voice.

"So," he was saying, "have you recovered all right from earlier?"

Hermione smiled to herself in private amusement. She could imagine Harry's cornered expression as if he were standing in front of her: polite interest just barely masking restless discomfort. He was rather awful at making small talk.

"Um, from what do you mean?" Georgia's voice tilted uneasily.

"The explosion...?"

"Oh!" Georgia laughed, a vacuous, relieved giggle that would never emerge from Hermione's lips. "Of course. Yes, I'm quite all right. Just a bit of a shock, that's all!" She giggled again.

"I imagine."

Hermione realized then that Harry and Georgia were likely completely unaware of her presence, shielded from their view as she was by the chair-back, and felt as though she ought to do something to announce herself. But then, it wasn't as if they were talking about anything terribly consequential or private, and if she said anything they might decide to include her in their conversation. All things considered, Hermione decided she'd rather wait them out and then return to her reading when the room was quiet again; it so rarely was, and she had been quite contentedly enjoying the rare peace before they'd interrupted her.

"So what happened?" Harry asked her. "Why'd it explode, anyway?"

"I accidentally knocked all the Sopophorous beans in," Georgia lamented. Hermione winced. She'd finally been coaxed by McGonagall into dropping Potions (it was only peripherally relevant to her post-graduate intention to embroil herself in professional academia, specializing in Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes, and History of Magic) but she knew enough to know that the particular beans in question were highly volatile. Surely even someone like Georgia would have had enough sense to be especially careful around them? "I got startled," Georgia explained, her voice an ambivalent blend of uncertainty and suspicion. "I saw ..."

"Saw what?" Harry sounded wary. Nervous, even.

Why would he be nervous? What could Georgia possibly have seen in the Potions classroom to make Harry nervous? Hermione was beginning to think this conversation was more significant and personal than she'd anticipated, and was well aware that her neglect to announce herself now cast her distinctly into the role of eavesdropper, yet couldn't bring herself to speak up. She was too curious. Harry had been acting odd lately, and several things didn't add up. She wasn't sure why she thought anything Georgia said might precipitate answers when Harry hadn't opened up to Hermione or Ron, but she was hoping, somehow, that she might hear something enlightening nonetheless.

"Er, Harry ... you aren't ... well ..." Georgia dithered. Out with it, thought Hermione impatiently. Harry's not (therefore he must be) what? "You'renotqueerareyou?" she spluttered in a sudden rush.

_Queer?_

There was a pause – too long a pause? – before Harry exclaimed, "No!" in that tone of voice Hermione knew from years of close observation accompanied the sort of panicked expression Harry's features favored when one brought up something he sincerely wished to avoid. Or when one hit a nail on the head that Harry had been trying to hide.

"You're not?"

"No! I'm not ... queer."

"Well, it's just that I saw ..." Georgia trailed off, as if now unsure of what she had, in fact, seen. Hermione wanted to shake her.

"That was ... not what it looked like," interrupted Harry before Georgia could reveal whatever compromising scene she had witnessed. "Not that it should have looked like anything. I mean, it was just nothing."

Whatever it was Georgia had seen, Harry was guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

"Well, if you're sure ..."

"I'm not queer," Harry said again.

Me thinks the Chosen One doth protest too much, thought Hermione wryly.

"Oh, good," sighed Georgia with palpable relief, more easily persuaded than Hermione by far. "That is such a relief."

"Erm, yes. Well." Hermione could see in her mind's eye her friend's anxious posture: body angled away from Georgia, shoulders clamoring for the attention of his ears, hands in his pockets or mussing up his already messy hair. "I have to go grab my stuff."

Hermione listened to their footsteps as they disappeared up their respective staircases.

Harry? Queer? No. It couldn't be.

Except ... it would make a certain amount of sense. And if Hermione had learned anything from her rather nontraditional friendship with Harry, it was that the preposterous was usually probable, as long as it was sensible (and often even when it wasn't).

Hermione recalled conversations she'd had with Harry about relationships recently. Especially when Ginny had been present too, there were certain comments that had a distinct touch of double entendre to them in the clearer perspective of hindsight. It would explain his and Ginny's breakup, certainly. And ... oh! Oh. Blimey.

Jumbled pieces rearranged themselves and clicked into place in Hermione's mind. She felt oddly relieved. She hated when things didn't add up; it grated on her nerves, passively but persistently. And now ...

Now the pieces fit together quite neatly indeed.

… & …

Bloody hell! Bloody hell! Bloody hell, cursed Harry.

Should he have told her?

No. That wasn't the way to do it – to come out to dippy, can't-keep-her-mouth-shut Georgia McDonnell.

But why not? It wasn't such a big deal, was it? If Harry was comfortable with it, why should it matter one way or another who he came out to, and when? He should be able to just admit to it casually, especially when given such a clear opportunity as Georgia had just given him. It would certainly put an end to all her simpering.

But no. It didn't feel ... right. He didn't want Georgia McDonnell to know first. He didn't really want anyone to know, actually. But he especially didn't want Georgia to know first – outside Ginny, of course.

Bloody hell.

Harry took a deep breath and grabbed the papers he needed, stuffing them haphazardly into his bag. Georgia was already idling by the portrait hole when he hopped down off the last step of the staircase from his dormitory into the common room.

"You ready?" she asked, pointedly pulling on a pair of pink cashmere gloves that clashed horribly with the striped Gryffindor shirt peaking out between the folds of her robes.

Harry nodded, resigned to spending the trek down the next three floors in Georgia's company.

"You know," said Georgia conversationally, as the Fat Lady swung shut behind them, "I'd watch out for your pal Draco Malfoy if I were you." His pal? Was she kidding? Or was she really that daft? "I think he's keen on you."

Harry laughed out loud. "That's ludicrous, Georgia."

Georgia looked personally affronted. "No it's not."

"Yes," he assured her, "it is."

"I know what I saw today, Harry. And since you're not gay, then what was that all about during Potions?" Georgia pointed out, clearly concluding that since there was no way two boys could touch each other without at least one of them being gay, and since Harry wasn't, it only stood to reason that Malfoy must be.

Except Harry _was_ gay. So in a sense Georgia was right, just not about the right person. Because no way was Malfoy gay.

"That was just ... I'm sure he was just ..." Harry was stymied. The thing was, it had been Malfoy touching Harry, not the other way around.

Bugger. Here he was, full circle back to the thought process he had been hammering into the ground when Georgia had interrupted him earlier: What the hell was Malfoy's deal, exactly?

"Mhmm," said Georgia, smirking. It wasn't an expression that suited her the way it did Malfoy.

The way it did Malfoy? Blimey. Shut up, brain.

"You've got it wrong, Georgia. Malfoy does _not_ fancy me," said Harry adamantly.

Georgia's answering shrug said, "Whatever you say, Harry," but Harry knew he was right. Georgia was completely mad, anyway. Right? Of course. Right. She didn't know what she was talking about. Draco Malfoy didn't, wouldn't, couldn't _ever_ fancy Harry Potter. And vice versa, of course. Anyone in their right mind could tell you that.

Finally, _finally, _they reached the fourth floor.

"Well, this is me," Harry said. "I'm meeting someone in the library."

Georgia would have to go on without him now. She'd already disclosed her destination; even she couldn't be so pathetically brazen as to find yet another excuse to follow him out of her way, though she appeared to be trying her best to come up with something credible.

"Who?" she asked, stalling.

"Ginny."

"Oh. Okay then," she said reluctantly, after a minute of internal contention that was obvious in the squint of her eyes and the frown of her lips. "See you later, Harry."

"Bye!" Harry chirped, then turned off into the corridor that would take him to the west wing where the library was.

Phew.

His lip found its way into his mouth again and he chewed on it absently.

Why was he so reluctant to come out? Ginny had been bugging him about it for weeks, and then just now Georgia had given him an optimal opportunity and he'd said nothing. No, worse, he'd vehemently denied the accusation.

Was it possible he could be wrong? Maybe his mind had gone wonky in the war after all, warped into thinking he was a homosexual. Could that happen? He didn't know enough about psychology, but it seemed possible. And it wasn't as if he'd acted on any of the fantasies that had precipitated his conclusion, and without, er, _physical _evidence, how could he be sure, really? It was more like a theory than a fact at this stage. Innocent until proven guilty, right?

Harry tried picturing himself snogging Georgia – she was considered attractive, by and large – tried to imagine vividly the way her lips would feel against his, how her tongue would feel curled around his, how her hands would feel running through his hair. And ... nothing. Not so much as a flush of skin. Okay. Well. That didn't necessarily mean anything. Georgia was very annoying and probably not Harry's type of girl at all (though he wasn't exactly sure what _would_ qualify a girl as his type). Maybe he should try a different one. Yes. He would try ...

Just then something caused Harry to look up, another movement in the quiet corridor.

"Hey," he instinctively greeted the person walking in the opposite direction. Who happened to be Draco Malfoy. Oh. Blast. Maybe guilty by association was more accurate; Harry's traitorous mind, distracted mid-thought, inserted Malfoy into the scenario that was supposed to prove his heterosexuality.

Immediately, Harry blushed.

"Hello," replied Malfoy, looking at Harry with an expression of vague astonishment on his delicate features.

"Er..." said Harry. They'd come to a stop in the middle of the corridor. Now that he'd solicited Malfoy's attention it seemed as though he ought to do something other than duck his head and dash to the library before Malfoy could absorb the anomaly that Harry had so accidentally instigated. "All right, then?" he asked uncertainly, his question a question in itself, if it was possible for a question to be such a thing as squared. How odd to be asking Draco Malfoy how he was getting on, as if they were two amiable acquaintances passing by rather than bitter rivals of nearly a decade.

"Alright," answered Malfoy. Then, rather tentatively, he added, "You?" And amazingly, the universe did not unravel around them. Apparently, it _was_ actually possible for them to be polite to one another. Malfoy had been right. Blimey.

"M'alright."

"Oh, good."

"Right, good." Harry nodded as if in time to the awkward silence that seemed to pulse between them. "Well, then..."

"Um, I should, uh, get on..." said Malfoy, gesturing down the hall and sounding as uncertain as Harry had ever heard him. He and Malfoy had parleyed in many different tones over the years – angry, taunting, even scared – but never awkward. Harry hadn't known Malfoy could even _be _awkward. He hadn't known Malfoy could laugh, either. Or treat Harry with anything other than disdain. And here it was that he could do all three.

Then and there, confronted with an awkward, civil Malfoy capable of laughing, Harry decided he would be civil in return. Like Malfoy pointed out, Harry had saved his life. Surely it was as rude to be uncivil to someone whose life you'd saved as it was to be uncivil to someone to whom you owed your life.

"See you later," said Harry, stepping away from Malfoy, moving on toward the library.

"See you," said Malfoy.

… & …

The eleven-year-old in Draco was dying a thousand ecstatic deaths. His eleven-year-old self had been living in anticipation of this moment ever since Potter had refused to take his offer of friendship seriously or shake his vulnerable, still untainted hand.

Eighteen-year-old Draco, on the other hand ... eighteen-year-old Draco didn't know what to think.

But he couldn't brood on this now, because at the other end of the corridor he could see Pansy approaching on the arm of Goyle. Fortunately, she appeared to be so absorbed in conversation with the tall, dark, and hulking Slytherin that she hadn't seen him yet, so he still had a chance at evasion. The question was: how?

Draco didn't fancy the idea of skulking around in an empty classroom until they passed, and this part of the castle was mostly populated with teachers' offices anyway. He could pop in on a teacher with a question, perhaps? No. That was too out-of-character. They would suspect something. Where was he, anyway? The fourth floor. The library was on the fourth floor. Perfect. Draco could even be productive and look up that Romeo and Juliet reference.

He about-faced and began striding quickly back in the direction Potter had been ambling when he'd surprised Draco with his heretofore unprecedented amiable acknowledgement.

That easily, Draco's mind was back on Potter. Again.

Draco slipped with some great relief into the library. Truly, it was a lovely place. The subdued murmur of sotto voce conversations, the floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall array of shelves, the thousands of elegant books like something out of a forgotten era of intellectualism as an art form... It was like walking into a mother's warm embrace. Or what Draco thought it might be like, anyway. Malfoys weren't a very warm sort, even by marriage.

"Can I help you?" asked Madam Pince as Draco approached her desk, looking down at him through the lenses of thin rectangular glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Her coarse, graying hair was piled into a loose bun on the top her of head that had to be held in place by magic, or else it would surely topple to her shoulders.

"I was wondering if you'd ever come across a reference to Romeo and Juliet?" asked Draco, preparing to feel thoroughly daft when Madam Pince told him they were made up.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Might you mean Romeo and Juliet, the Shakespearean tragedy?"

"I might," Draco conceded. "What's a Shakespearean tragedy?"

"Dear boy, do not presume to tell me you've never heard of Shakespeare!"

"Well, I don't know. I mean, I probably have..." hedged Draco skeptically.

"The Bard? The greatest writer the English language has ever seen?" Draco shook his head. Bugger, did this guy sound important. How was it that Potter had heard of him when Draco was completely ignorant? "Hamlet?" pressed the librarian, desperate for Draco to make a connection. "Macbeth? 'But soft what light through yonder window breaks'? 'It is East and Juliet is the sun'?"

"That's Romeo and Juliet, right?"

"So you know it?" she asked, her glasses slipping off her nose in her eagerness.

"No, I just – 'Juliet is the sun.' I just figured..."

"Oh." Her disappointment felt personal. "I suppose a Malfoy wouldn't have bothered with _Muggle_ literature. Of course not," she muttered caustically, not intending Draco to hear. But it so happened that Draco had rather keen hearing. The comment stung, and made him all the more determined to acquaint himself with this 'Bard.'

"So can you help me?" he prompted.

"Yes." Madam Pince sighed in resignation. She took a spare bit of parchment and wrote, 'MUG FIC SHA'. "Here's the call number. It's just over there," she said, pointing to an alcove of shelves toward the back of the library. "Like I said, you're looking for the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare."

Draco turned, hearing Madam Pince sigh again at his retreating back, and wandered toward the alcove. He felt like sighing at himself, too. Honestly, how had he overlooked the greatest writer of all time? Supposing, of course, that the librarian hadn't been embellishing. They did tend to get rather worked up about these things, as a rule.

Draco ran a slender finger along the spines of the books, murmuring "Sha... Sha... Sha..." as he scanned the names of the authors. Ah, Shakespeare. As Draco reached for a small leather book with 'Romeo and Juliet' embossed in gold on the spine, a voice spoke – very familiar, and very close by.

"Gin, not this again," groaned Harry Potter, sounding for all the world as if he were standing right next to Draco. Draco froze.

Not what again?

"I'm sorry, Harry," said a second, female, voice, "but you've _got_ to tell them!" Tell who what? Draco leaned closer to the shelf behind which sat Harry Potter and the female, presumably Ginny Weasley, having a conversation they'd felt the need to conduct in a far off corner of the library, where they were unlikely to be overheard. Unfortunately for them, they hadn't bargained on Draco and his newfound rapport for The Bard. Draco cast a quick _Muffliato_ as a precaution, though it was more of a formality. Draco was seldom caught engaging in such... subtle activities. He was rather good at sneaking about when he wanted to be.

"Why?" Potter was asking. "Why do they need to know?"

"Because they're your best friends."

"So? That doesn't mean they need to know everything about me." Draco found himself nodding absently in agreement. One should never keep one's friends too well informed.

"Nor would they want to," the female Weasley acceded. "But they'd want to know this. You know they would."

Potter was quiet.

"They deserve to know," she added, in a softer voice.

"Why do they deserve to know?" Potter said with sudden vehemence. "Why does everyone deserve to know everything about me? Just because I 'saved the wizarding world'," Draco hadn't known Potter ever used such a biting tone of voice outside his arguments with Draco, "doesn't make me communal property. 'Everybody line up for a piece of the Chosen One!' I'm not the fucking Berlin Wall." The bloody what? "I don't have to tell anybody anything if I don't want to."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Harry."

"I'm not!" Potter exclaimed dramatically. Then in a more subdued voice he added, "I just think I should be able to keep some pieces of me to myself."

"Sure. But this?"

It was quiet on the other side of the shelf for a moment. Draco could hear his intake and outtake of breath in the silence and opted to stop breathing, instead holding his breath in anticipation. Though what of, he couldn't say.

Harry broke the silence. "I don't see why I can't wait until it's relevant. I'm not even dating anyone right now," he said.

"That could change if you wanted it to," said the Weaslette pointedly. Draco's stomach dropped. His heartbeat became swollen in his chest, anxious and adamant. What exactly were they talking about here? When Harry didn't respond, she went on, "Anyway, how do you think that would go over? 'Guess what, guys – good news. I've taken up with someone! Oh, and by the way, he's a bloke'."

Wait. What? A bloke? _A bloke? _Draco's blood ran cold and his skin prickled as the implication of Ginny Weasley's cavalier words penetrated him like a thousand tiny needles.

"I don't know," Harry was saying, their conversation moving on oblivious to the fact that Draco Malfoy was starting to hyperventilate one bookshelf way, "probably about as well as they'd take me up and telling them I'm gay."

Draco staggered back from the shelf as if it had shocked him. Gay? Harry fucking Potter was _gay_? Since when? Draco half-gasped, half-yelped and was very grateful to his pre-knowing-Potter-was-gay self for having had the foresight to cast the _Muffliato_.

That was _not_ what he had bargained on hearing when he'd decided to eavesdrop.

Potter and the Weaslette continued talking, but Draco was overcome by a sudden sickening sensation of lightheadedness and began to back away in a sort of stunned daze, clutching the copy of Romeo and Juliet tightly to his chest. He felt like he'd been Confunded. Like all his limbs had been asleep and just woken up, buzzing in an agonizing, tingling dissonance.

"Mr. Malfoy," called Madam Pince as he passed her desk on his way out, "are you going to check that out?"

"What?" Draco shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears and forced his eyes to focus. The book. Right. "Oh, yes. Yes please." He slid the book across the desk and rubbed a hand absently through the soft tufts of his hair as he waited for it to be passed back to him.

"Catching up on a bit of reading?"

Draco's innards jumped with a sudden jolt of startled adrenaline and collided unpleasantly with his skin.

"What?" He spun and jumped again. Potter was loitering behind Draco, his bag slung casually over his shoulder and the Weaslette standing by his side. His hair was more tousled than usual, like he'd recently been thoroughly snogged.

No. No Potter and snogging in the same thought. That was too... queer. Disturbing. Anyway, it wasn't possible. Draco knew where Potter had just been and what he'd been doing, and it wasn't snogging. Tousled hair was just as easily the product of agitation as snogging, Draco reminded himself. No need for his mind to jump ship into the gutter at such slight provocation.

Self-consciously, Draco dropped his hand from where it was still raking through what was left of his own hair. Potter's was longer than his, he noticed. It mingled with his eyelashes and hid the tips of his earlobes, and brushed along the top of his robe.

"Um, yup." Draco gulped. Blast. Pull it together, will you? "Yes, just indulging in a dalliance with the Bard," he elaborated, as if it were something he did on a regular basis, for pleasure.

Fuck. A dalliance with the Bard? For pleasure? The Bard was a bloody bloke. Oh, hell. He was going to give Potter ideas.

"You don't say. The Bard?" Potter's lips quirked. "Not exactly light reading, is it?"

"Here you are," said Madam Pince, passing Draco the copy of Romeo and Juliet.

"Isn't it?" inquired Draco in what he hoped was a blasé manner.

Potter glanced at the cover of the book before Draco could slide a hand protectively across it.

"Romeo and Juliet? I didn't know you were a romantic, Malfoy," he teased.

Draco flushed. "I'm not! Really, I... I just like the, uh, tragedy." Madam Pince had said this was a tragedy, hadn't she? Not a romance. "I am most certainly _not _a romantic. We Slytherins don't have the time or patience for anything so sentimental as romance," he sneered with more conviction than he felt. "Unlike you Gryffindors, I imagine. You do seem to be rather fond of such fanciful notions."

"Fanciful notions?" Potter arched an eyebrow. Draco hadn't known he could do that. "Does Draco Malfoy not believe in love?"

"I wouldn't really know," said Draco dismissively.

Potter's lips pursed thoughtfully.

"A Slytherin by any other name..." quipped the Weaslette.

"Er, what?"

"Are you not familiar with the play?" queried Potter, gesturing at the book in Draco's hands.

"I may not have read this _particular _one..."

"Right. Well, you'll see then."

Draco rather doubted it. Weasley to Malfoy translation didn't often come out in coherent English. "Okay."

"Well, enjoy your... tragedy," Potter said, before the Weaslette grabbed him by the hand and pulled him toward the door, leaving Draco standing alone, perturbed, and thoroughly flustered in the midst of the library, unknowingly clutching the single most epic romance in the English language to his pounding heart.


	8. Calm Before the Storm

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

**Calm Before The Storm**

"_There's nothing in this world so sweet as love. And next to love the sweetest thing is hate." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_

Draco was striding through dim, damp corridors at an agitated pace. He was moving as quickly as he could without actually breaking into a run, despite the nearly irresistible din of every inch of his body begging him to do so. His very cells tingled unpleasantly with the desperate need to get as far away as possible from the cold presence at his back. The cold presence that was following him in a silent, sinister pursuit. Yet to run from it would be to condemn himself, to admit to his fate. There could be no running.

Draco's breaths hitched in his throat and coalesced in frosty clouds when he exhaled. Every corner he swept around seemed to deposit him into a corridor identical to the last – just as deserted, just as bleak. He must be miles underground, he reasoned, could be walking the very tunnel to Hell itself, from which there was no escape. There was no way to fight, no way to flee this maze. There was only this endless labyrinth of the dungeon corridors, the bleak panic of the chase. He was just as surely trapped as if he were shackled to a cell wall, the illusion of freedom afforded by his frantic pacing but a cruel mockery compounding his entrapment.

You are a Slytherin, he told himself, a Malfoy. This is your element.

It tasted like a lie. He was no more at home here than he would be in the arms of the shadow that chased him. In truth, Draco was terrified, just barely hanging on to a semblance of composure. He had been left alone to his fate with this shadow-monster, had perhaps even been intentionally locked in with it. There was no one here to save him, no one even to witness his eventual and inevitable end. For Draco had no illusions as to how this would end. He was only managing to stay just out of the shadow's reach. He couldn't stay one step ahead forever.

The shadow was getting closer, gaining on him. Draco could feel its clammy breath raising the tiny hairs on the back of his neck. Panic rose in his throat like bile. His legs jerked unnaturally with each step in the effort to keep them from taking him off sprinting for all his worth away from the shadow, straight into the black arms of his fate. He must keep his cool. Showing weakness was not tolerated. Malfoys were never weak.

It was too late, or perhaps there had never been a chance at all, and he snapped. He was running then – running like he never had before, at a speed that was almost like flying. As his feet hit the floor in large, leaping strides, the stale draft of the dungeon corridors became the wavering, hissing heat of flames. The sort of heat that burnished one's skin and turned it shiny with scar tissue. The sort of heat that consumed a soul as soon as a body. Hellfire. It rose in angry columns on either side of him, and he was chased still – the flames racing and snapping behind him, beside him. Draco ran, but they were faster.

He hadn't thought death would be this fiery, this passionate. He'd thought it would be a sneaky, slippery thing. A quiet thing one was pulled into in the cover of darkness.

The fire was just feet behind him now; he could feel its foremost reaching fingers tugging at his hems. In moments, it would consume him. Of this, he was so certain that he almost stopped running and finally let himself be overtaken, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't relinquish the last thread of control that was the pounding of his feet against the floor and the pounding of his heartbeat against the thin crust of his chest. Now that he was running, there could be no stopping. He would survive, or he would die, and no one could say he hadn't tried.

There was a whoosh of air above his head, and then a skin-colored thing was thrust into his face. Draco tried to blink it into clarity through vision that burned red and blistered in the heat. It was a hand, he discerned. A hand that was dangling open-palmed before his eyes, beckoning agitatedly for him to take hold.

"Come on," begged a desperate voice.

Draco lifted his sweaty hand to meet the other. This was a foolish hope, the desperate hope of a hopeless man. A last hope.

His hand came just short of the other. Their fingertips brushed, but passed through.

"I can't," said Draco. Or maybe he just thought it. "It's too late." He started to slow.

"No. It's not."

Draco looked up. All he could see against the raging pulse of the flames was a pair of bright green eyes in a pale, black-topped face.

Then the other hand made a final, determined thrust downwards and clasped tightly around his, and Draco was yanked upwards.

… & ...

Draco woke up with a jolt, panting and in a cold sweat. He lifted a hand to wipe his clammy hair back from his face, and in so doing realized he was shaking. He took a couple of deep breaths and slid out of bed, pulling his covers with him to shield his naked body from the cold. He walked to his dresser and picked up the vial, then lit a fire in the hearth and gingerly curled up in the armchair to wait for the shivers and the shaking to subside. It's just a dream, he told himself. Just a dream. You have it all the time.

He punched the fist that clenched the vial into his lap. It made a muffled thump, the blow cushioned by the thick down of the comforter. It wasn't just a dream. Not all of it. That hand, that desperate hope, that inexplicable yet implacable sudden trust, and those determined green eyes burning in the sea of bloodthirsty flames – that was all real.

Damn Harry Potter for saving his life! Damn himself for trusting Potter with his life. Damn Potter for invading Draco's dreams, and damn him for being able to treat Draco as if he were the same Malfoy from before.

As if Draco could ever think of Potter the same way again.

Tears snuck up from under his eyelids, blurring his vision. He blinked them away in frustration.

Potter's job was to make hating him easy for Draco, and heretofore he had been brilliant at it. So why stop now? Why did he have to do something so unwarranted, so unspeakably selfless and good? Something impossible for Draco to ever reciprocate or repay? Didn't he know it would fundamentally change everything that ever followed between them? He'd done something for Draco that Draco's own parents wouldn't have done, that Draco wouldn't have done for himself.

But why? _Why? _

Draco wrapped his arms protectively around his stomach. He couldn't take this. Couldn't take owing Potter the life he didn't even want. Couldn't take not knowing what had put that determination in Potter's eyes. Couldn't take not understanding where that implicit, resolute trust had come from. Couldn't take living in a world where the walls of his determined hatred of Potter were crumbling around him. Couldn't take moving in such proximity to Potter in a world where his defenses were down.

Those walls were there for a reason, because behind them ... behind them were a hundred secret needs that Draco had to suppress to keep from falling to pieces. Behind them was vulnerability. Hurt feelings. Yearning, for ... approval, kinship. For the walls not to have to exist, and in equal measure panic that they should ever come down. Crumbling walls were dangerous, and Draco was already wavering on the tip of a dangerously precarious precipice.

Perhaps civility with Potter had been a bad idea. Draco's fingers slid absently across the cool smoothness of the glass vial's surface. He wasn't sure if he could take any kind of relationship with Potter that didn't conform to habit, not on top of everything else. Surely, there was a breaking point. Surely this was it, or rapidly approaching.

Despite what he'd told Potter, Draco had never expected his pathetic stabs at politeness to be reciprocated. At least, not until this afternoon in the corridor. Draco being civil to Potter, that was one thing. Potter being civil to Draco was another thing entirely. If Potter remained aloof, Draco was still in control. However, Potter being polite to Draco instantly gave him the upper hand, whether he knew it or not.

This was dangerous, this proximity. It suddenly had no boundaries. Even less so after what Draco had overheard today. His game with Potter and Georgia had been one last thread tying him to his old self, the old Potter and Malfoy, and now even that had been severed, turned on its head, made into something dangerous. He was playing with fire, and who knew whether Potter would be able to save him this time? He shouldn't even let it come to that.

He should distance himself from Potter. He had never been able to do it before, but then, he had never tried.

Sometimes it seemed as if Potter was the single axis around which Draco's very identity revolved. His fixation kept him in orbit around the scrawny hero, and the parameters of that orbit defined him – the constituent factors of his hatred for Potter read like a recipe for his identity. Mix together all the dark, sick reasons he followed the Dark Lord and bowed to his father with all the good things Potter had that Draco was denied or simply lacked, and you got a Malfoy.

The orbit, and therein Potter himself, _was _Draco's identity, for all intents and purposes. As long as he knew where he stood in relation to Potter, he knew who he was and what he stood for. Now that the structure of that orbit had dissolved, Draco was cast into free-orbit, held in place by gravity but directionless and disoriented.

He could distance himself from Potter, yes, but what happened to a planet that spun off its axis, out of orbit, into the endless depths of open space? It was lost, invisible as long as nothing laid claim to it.

No, pulling out of orbit was much too dangerous. Draco had already lost everything that had ever laid claim to his identity. If he lost Potter, too, he might well cease to exist altogether. At least in any meaningful sense of the word.

Perhaps, instead, the safest thing to do would be to continue as before, as if the old path were still clear. Malfoys had tough skin, no matter what lay beneath. The walls would go back up and he would become himself again. The game with Georgia was a perfect place to start. Messing with Potter's mind would be the perfect shield against ... against whatever else was trying to brew between them, trying to lift Draco's skin and crawl inside.

Draco sighed and stood up, ready to go back to bed. The shaking had stopped.

… & …

"Good morning," Potter greeted Draco as he took his seat in Potions the next morning.

Draco swallowed the impulse to mirror Potter's amiable grin. Walls, he reminded himself. It wouldn't do to encourage this, would be something akin to giving in to the urge to run from the shadow in that nightmarish corridor from his dream.

He gave Potter a sly appraisal that slid sideways from the corner of his eye. "Morning."

It was a lecture class, so they spent the whole lesson taking down notes and, in Draco's case, trying to ignore the not-so-subtle sidelong glances Potter was giving him.

At the lesson's end, Draco stood up abruptly, something he usually did with a practiced graceful drama, but which today knocked his bag off the desk and spilled its contents across the floor.

"Damn," he muttered, bending down to agitatedly begin shoving materials back into the bag. Suddenly, another face – pale, bespectacled, and topped with all-too-familiar black hair – joined his at floor level.

"Potter, what do you think you're doing?" he hissed.

"Helping you."

Draco stood. Potter followed.

"I don't need your help," he said, scowling.

Potter held out a textbook, looking affronted.

Draco could have coldly held out his bag for Potter to drop the book into with minimal contact between them, but for the sake of putting walls back up and messing with Potter's head and slipping back into his Malfoy identity, he held out his hand instead.

Taking the book from Potter's proffered hand, he allowed his to brush against Potter's in the process. They were connected for a pregnant moment, hot skin against hot, fevered skin. Their eyes met across their outstretched hands: green and gray, dark and light in the wrong order, the determined self-assured set of their identical unblinking gazes belying the roiling mix of old bitterness, new respect, and ambivalent confusion within.

Draco pulled their hands apart, pushed the book into his bag, and swept from the room.

… & …

Harry and Ginny left Potions and met up with Ron and Hermione, who'd been in Muggle Studies together. They headed to the Great Hall. Seventh-years – and eighth-years – had an assembly there. The house tables were pushed to the sides of the room when they entered, the benches organized into rows.

Harry and his friends walked in past the front row, where Harry noticed Malfoy was already sitting with Pansy Parkinson and Goyle. Parkinson had her arm entwined through the crook of Malfoy's, but Malfoy didn't appear to be paying it much mind. When he looked up and saw Harry, though, he moved a hand to rest on Parkinson's thigh. She, in obvious delight, leaned closer and ran her free hand affectionately through Malfoy's short blond hair. Malfoy leaned into the touch, still looking back at Harry. It was an unnerving gaze; it seemed to be gauging him and challenging him in equal measure. Harry's skin flushed and he was sent back to that moment in Potions when their eyes had met – and then Draco had abruptly turned and coolly fled the room.

Harry couldn't quite explain it, but today when Malfoy had brushed off his greeting, had avoided eye contact all through class, and had been short with him afterwards when Harry had tried to help him ... it had stung. It had stung as sharply as any calculated insult Malfoy had ever thrown at him. Considering the sheer enormity of the historical animosity between them, how could such a small slight – so small, in comparison, that it was hardly even accurate to call it a slight – cause such an acute sinking sensation in Harry's stomach?

They passed the canoodling Slytherin pair, and Harry forced himself to quench the urge to look behind him to see if Malfoy was still watching.

"Where do you want to sit, Harry?" asked Ginny.

"The back," he replied. It was harder for people to be inconspicuous in their staring when they had to turn backwards in their seat to do so.

They settled in the back row, chatting as they waited for the rest of the students to file in. The shy sixth-year whom Harry had chosen for his third Chaser – Charlie – spotted them and took the empty seat at Harry's side. He was a good-looking boy, with light brown hair, freckles, blue eyes, and a surprisingly delightful sense of humor, too, Harry realized, hidden beneath his quiet exterior.

At last, everyone was seated and McGonagall took the podium.

"Welcome," she said. "This won't take long. I just called you here to remind you that as seventh-years – and eighth-years," she amended, "you will be graduating this June, and it will be time to make your way in the world alone for the first time, as adults. We've been talking about your potential career paths for a couple years now, organizing your schedules to fit your intended career or area of continued study, but it is now time to begin considering and pursuing these paths in earnest." Harry's stomach clenched and shifted uneasily.

He'd been espousing his desire to become an Auror because it had seemed the obvious thing for him to do, perhaps even the only thing he was good at. Yet ever since he'd defeated Voldemort, uncertainty had been poking larger and larger chinks in his resolution. For the first time since he'd become a wizard he had the opportunity to live a life free of the constant threat of peril. Was he really going to throw that away? To intentionally throw himself back into the fray of dark forces? He wasn't sure he had it in him to actively pursue the sort of situations Voldemort had forced him into time and time again. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

The way he saw it, there were two paths he could take from here: the one paved with the only kind of living he'd ever known as a wizard, and the uncharted normality he didn't. He knew which one he wanted, but was it attainable? Were the two mutually exclusive?

"It is not too early to start scouting potential employers, even meeting with them," McGonagall informed them. "Special privileges to leave campus are granted to those graduating students who wish to conduct interviews for post-graduate work, be it academic or work-related. I encourage you to keep this opportunity in mind in the coming months, and also to consider that your peers at Durmstrang and Beauxbatons will also be seeking employment. It would not go amiss to get a leg up on the competition, as it were." She gave them her signature stern look, softened at the edges by fondness. "It gives me great pleasure to see the faces of so many bright witches and wizards here before me. I know Dumbledore would be just as proud of you as I am, were he here." She paused a moment, gathering herself to continue.

For Harry, the mention of Dumbledore felt like he was plunging back into the frozen pond after Gryffindor's sword. The air rushed out of his lungs and the lingering images from his latest recurring nightmare rose up from the chilly depths. He took a deep breath. He couldn't lose it, not here.

At the podium, McGonagall cleared her throat and continued. "It hasn't been an easy road here, for any of you, but here we are nonetheless, and all the stronger for it, I think. I hope you make the most of the opportunities this new era presents you. I have no doubt that all of you are capable of anything you set your minds to, and it is with great anticipation that I wait to see what great things you accomplish in the future. In the meantime, if there is anything I or any of the other professors can do for you, do not hesitate to ask. Through your professors, you have access to many valuable connections, and I strongly encourage you to capitalize on these. I know they will all be more than happy to help you, as will I." She scanned their faces, looking all at once exhausted by the cumulative stress of the past decade and invigorated by the promise she beheld in the crowd before her. "That is all," she concluded. "You are dismissed."

The future. This was the first time it had ever belonged to Harry with any certainty. A year ago it wasn't even a sure thing that Harry would live to have one, much less get to chart it himself. He hadn't imagined that freedom would be this foggy.

Before, everything had been clearly defined: his best friends were Ron and Hermione, he loved Ginny, he hated Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape, and his sole driving purpose in life was to conquer Voldemort.

Now Ron and Hermione were closer to each other than they were to him, he loved Ginny still but only as one loves a friend, boys interested him vastly more than girls did, Snape wasn't evil but rather a man suffering at the cruel hands of a lost and unrequited love, he'd saved Draco Malfoy's life and couldn't possibly say he hated him anymore without lying, and his sole purpose in life had been accomplished. Nothing, absolutely bloody nothing, was clear anymore.

… & …

"I have no doubt that all of you are capable of anything you set your minds to ..." McGonagall was saying, in a sentimental speech that ought to turn Draco's stomach but which he had to admit actually tasted sincere.

All of us with one exception, he thought bitterly. Me.

What possibilities could there be for a Malfoy heir and a former Death Eater? It didn't matter to the 'good' side – Potter's side – that he was a repented Death Eater, a chagrined Malfoy. And yet, being so, he could never again retreat to the darker corners of the wizarding world. Even if he'd wanted to, the sort of men that lurked there would spit on his shoes – at best – if he even dared to try.

He sneered. It'd help if he even knew what he wanted to set his mind to. At least that would be something. A start. As things stood, after Hogwarts there was nothing for Draco Malfoy. Nothing but a scorned, obsolete name, if it had ever even been worth anything at all. Nothing, not even hope.

Draco's fingers clenched around Pansy's thigh, reminding him that his hand still rested there, forgotten from when Potter had walked by looking so content, sointegral a part of the happiness and admiration that was offered him so readily. What that had to do with gripping Pansy's thigh like a jealous boyfriend, Draco wasn't sure. Nor did he care to investigate it too carefully.

He let go and moved his hand back to his own lap. Pansy glanced at the now vacant surface of her leg, then at him, and pouted. Draco's lip curled in distaste. Pouting was so childish.

"You are dismissed," said McGonagall at last.

Draco stood, relishing the stretch the movement offered his tight leg muscles. He turned toward the back of the room to stretch his back, and his eyes fell on Potter, who was absorbed in conversation with a pretty sixth-year boy Draco recognized seeing seated at Gryffindor table at meal times.

Something acidic fizzed out of Draco's heart and burned its way along his blood stream as he watched, so he forced himself to look away. It didn't help. As he made his way out of the hall and towards the dungeons, a strange, heavy tightness settled in his stomach that had only a little to do with his anxiety over his future.

… & …

_Harry -_

_I need to talk to you._

_- Hermione_

Hermione -

What about?

- Harry

_Harry -_

_It's rather private._

_- Hermione_

_Hermione -_

How private?

- Harry

_Harry -_

_That depends._

_- Hermione_

Hermione -

On what?

- Harry

_Harry -_

_On your discretion._

_- Hermione_

From the peculiar expression that clouded Harry's features as he read the note, rather like that after he'd gulped down the Polyjuice Potion in their second year, Hermione guessed he knew – or at least suspected – what their meeting would be about.

Hermione -

Okay. Meet me in the Room of Requirement, then.

After class.

- Harry

Hermione tucked the parchment she and Harry had been passing notes on underneath her Transfiguration textbook. It was blank once more; she'd charmed it to erase itself once the recipient had read the contents. The charm came in quite handy when arranging assignations with Ron, actually.

Hermione turned her attention back to McGonagall's lecture on transforming one's appearance, or tried to, anyway. She'd already done extensive preparatory reading on the subject and found it tedious to listen to McGonagall repeat the same material. Usually, she would have taken it as an opportunity to reinforce her studying with further note-taking, but today she had other things on her mind.

What she really wanted to do right now was talk to Harry. She was fairly certain her hypothesis was correct – she had the same gut feeling about it that she'd had when researching ancient alchemists, basilisks, and werewolves – but she wanted to turn her theory into irrefutable fact. She wanted to hear it from Harry's mouth.

It was funny how times changed. Usually the manifestations of her gut feeling meant Harry was soon to be in danger, if he wasn't already. Now it just meant he was having a personal upheaval. Funny that that should seem a relief, but taken in the context of Harry's life ... it most definitely was the lesser of two evils.

Hermione pushed her bushy hair back from her face. She'd let it grow longer than usual last year out of neglect – she'd had more pressing concerns than grooming her unruly mane – and had found that it was actually somewhat less expansive that way, so she'd left it long. It now reached half-way down her back. However, it was still wont to drift into her face in moments of head-bent concentration or contemplation, such as now.

Harry didn't appear to be faring any better than she in terms of lesson-oriented focus, which wasn't all that unusual as he was somewhat less dedicated to absorbing every word that fell from the mouth of a professor than she. And under the circumstances, it made sense for him to be significantly less focused than usual. It did concern Hermione, however, that he not only seemed to be paying no attention to McGonagall, but actually looked a bit queasy. Surely, he couldn't be _that_ nervous about telling her?

Harry -

What's wrong? You look sick.

- Hermione

Hermione -

It's nothing. Don't worry.

- Harry

Hermione shook her head. Something was bothering him. Something, she suspected, even more than coming out to her.

Class passed slowly, but at last McGonagall dismissed them and Hermione made her way to the seventh floor. Harry was already inside the Room of Requirement when she arrived. For their purposes, the room was small but cozy, furnished with a couch, two armchairs, a small table, and a fireplace. Harry was standing with his back to her, staring into the fire, but turned when she came in.

"Hey," he said.

"Hello."

"So ... what did you want to talk to me about?" he asked, with wary resignation.

Hermione took a deep breath. Best just to be out with it. Nothing would be achieved by sidling up to the topic. "Harry," she said carefully, "are you gay?"

Harry opened his mouth, and for a moment it appeared like he would try to deny it. Hermione could see his thoughts racing, debates raging – arguments and counterarguments. Then he deflated a bit, part resignation and part something like relief shining from his eyes. "Yes," he said simply, "I am. How'd you know?"

The implied question within the question was so clear he might as well have said it aloud: "Is it that obvious?"

"It's not obvious, Harry. In fact, I wouldn't have figured it out at all if it weren't for ... Well, truth be told ... I was eavesdropping. I was in the common room yesterday at lunch," Hermione admitted, abashed, "in the chair by the fire, where you couldn't see me. I overheard you talking to Georgia."

"But ..." Harry's eyes crinkled in confusion, "I told Georgia that I wasn't queer."

"Yes, but that only made it obvious that you are."

"Oh," said Harry, sounding as if he didn't exactly follow that logic. Hermione got that a lot.

"I know you pretty well after eight years, Harry. Even if I can't see your face, I can still discern the difference between truth and denial. Sometimes even before you can."

Harry let out a heavy breath and glanced about for a place to sit. He walked over to the couch and flopped down on it. Hermione followed and took a seat on one of the armchairs facing him.

"Did you tell anyone else?" he asked in a small voice. Hermione was reminded strongly of the Harry she'd met on the train so many years ago, uncertain and shy and in way over his head.

"No, of course not, Harry."

"Not even Ron?"

Especially not Ron. Hermione knew full well how he would take this development, and she most certainly did not want to be the one to break it to him. She would leave that to Harry, out of pure selfish self-preservation. She did not want Ron's anger to be misdirected toward her. His temper was seldom very picky about accuracy when it wanted release, and even though she knew he would be frightfully apologetic once he came around, she'd rather not put herself through that if it could be avoided.

"No, not even Ron," was what she told Harry. He looked like he didn't know whether to be relieved or anxious about this. "But you'll have to tell him soon, you know. You don't want him to find out the hard, er, harder way."

"I don't see how he could, as I'm not seeing anyone for him to catch me snogging or something." Well, that answered her next question.

"You're not?"

"Nope."

"Well, he could still find out by accident somehow. Someone else telling him by accident ... or something."

"Like who? You and Ginny are the only ones who know."

Hermione was beginning to get frustrated with her friend. "Harry, cut it out. You're just creating excuses not to tell him. But whether it's today or next week or on the eve of your wedding to some bloke –"

"Gay marriage is legal for wizards?" he interrupted.

"And witches, yes."

"Hm."

"_Anyway, _as I was saying, whether you tell him tomorrow or in a year, you are going to have to tell him at some point, and the more progressed things are when you tell him – I really recommend not waiting until your wedding – the more upset he's going to be. So why postpone the inevitable? Why not just get it over with? Where's that Gryffindor courage you're so famous for?" she teased, in an effort to lighten the admonitory tone her voice had taken. She did slip into it so easily sometimes.

Instead of smiling, however, or even replying, Harry balled his hands into fists and pressed them to his eyes, leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees.

"Harry?" asked Hermione, her voice shifting immediately into concern. "He's not going to react _that _badly, I'm sure. I mean, he might be upset, but he'll come around, you know he will. He always does. He loves you, you know..."

"That's not it, Hermione," said Harry, his voice muffled by his hands.

"Then what is it?"

"That Gryffindor courage 'I'm so famous for'? I don't have it. I've never been courageous a day in my life. I may have done some ... seemingly courageous ... things, but really all I've ever done is act purely out of fear. That's not courageous or heroic – it's pathetic," Harry said, in a tight voice that suggested he was fighting tears.

Hermione was frozen in disbelief. So this was the other thing that had been bothering him. She'd had no idea Harry felt like this. And what's more, she was utterly blindsided by his outburst. Harry seldom talked in any detail about his internal state of affairs, much less without prodding.

"Harry, you don't really believe that do ..." Hermione trailed off as suspicion dawned on her. "Did Malfoy say that to you?" she asked, voice hard with derision. How Malfoy could be so vile to Harry after what he'd done for him – Hermione had been there (in this very room, she realized) when Harry had risked his life to save Malfoy, and if that wasn't courage then she didn't know the meaning of the word – she didn't know.

Harry laughed wryly. "No," he said, "Malfoy did not say that to me." There was something in Harry's tone that she couldn't quite place, but she couldn't worry about that now.

"Then what is it? Where is this coming from?"

"Never mind. It's just – never mind."

But he still wouldn't show his face, so Hermione knew he was far from okay. She moved over to sit next to him on the couch and put her arms around him. "Harry, listen to me," she said in her bossiest, most no-nonsense voice, "courage is not the absence of fear. It's doing what's right in spite of fear, no matter how hard it is. I have never seen anyone act more admirably in the face of fear – real fear – than you. You've faced things most people could scarcely imagine, and you've displayed – no, defined – Gryffindor courage hundreds of times over. And if you don't know that by now ..." Hermione's own throat constricted. "Oh, Harry. How can you not know that?" She put a palm on his cheek. "Look at me, Harry."

He did, and Hermione was shocked to see his eyelashes were wet. She had never seen Harry cry. Never, no matter how awful things got. It just went to show that despite his straightforward approach to physical adversaries, Harry was remarkably self-conscious and vulnerable when it came to matters of the heart. He always had been, and coming out couldn't be helping.

"You are a remarkable wizard, Harry, _and _a remarkable person," she said earnestly. Then she smiled, "And if you think girls are the only ones at Hogwarts crushing on you, you'll be in for a surprise."

He didn't return her smile, but he took a shaky breath and didn't shed any new tears, and that was something.

"It's just," he said, covering his face again and speaking into his hands, "I'm sick of being in the spotlight. The legend of 'Harry Potter' never gets old for people. I'm just a name to them, someone to ogle and idolize without giving any thought to the person behind the name. How do you think they're going to take finding out I'm gay? They'll have a bloody field day! It'll be this huge new scandal – 'The Boy Who ... Likes Other Boys!' I'll be the center of attention again, like I just killed Voldemort yesterday."

Oh, Harry. Why are things never easy for you?

Harry wiped his face on his robes and sat up, still swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. "I never asked to be a hero. Never wanted to be. I never even got a choice. It was either me, or let the world be subjugated at the hands of Voldemort. Hah!" He laughed without a trace of humor. "That's no choice at all."

"I know. But you _are_, Harry. You are a hero whether you like it or not, and that means you are always going to be a novelty, and – yes – a legend. You give them something to believe in."

"Why isn't it enough that I gave everything I had to save them from Voldemort? When are they going to stop picking at me? What will be left when they do?" Hermione didn't have a good answer to that, so she said nothing. "I thought by finally doing away with Voldemort the fuss about me would die out, and then I had to go and bring something like this on myself! All hell will break loose when this gets out. People won't stop talking about it for months, or years, even! I'll never be able to have a normal relationship. I wish I could just keep it to myself."

"Maybe you can."

He shot her a skeptical look.

"Look, I know all the attention is really demanding and invasive now, but you just conquered the Dark Lord – of course they're interested. I know it was last spring," she said when he opened his mouth to interrupt, "but that really isn't so long ago. It may not seem like it now, and it will never go away completely, but this frenzy will subside. I promise. As for coming out, you should tell your friends, but you don't have to make a public statement if you don't want to. You can be discreet with future ... boyfriends, and keep it quiet. Word will get out here and there, of course, but if you're careful about it, it just might not explode."

Harry was quiet for a moment, absorbing this, staring at his lap and picking at a frayed hem on his old jeans. Finally, he sighed and looked up at Hermione. "Okay, I'll tell Ron. Soon."


	9. Dance of Denial

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**The Dance of Denial**

"_If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." - Hermann Hesse_

Draco took a sip of his morning pumpkin juice and peered over the rim of the goblet toward the Gryffindor table. Potter was buttering a piece of toast while smiling wanly at something Granger was saying to him.

He didn't look like a poof, damn it. He just looked like Potter: equal parts self-assured, self-deprecating, and innately attention grabbing. He wasn't prancing, or pouting, or posing, or displaying any other tell-tale poofy behavior. He was biting into his toast as if attempting to devour it in as few bites as possible, like any normal teenage boy. Like Draco. Well, not like Draco exactly, because Draco took pride in comporting himself with a great deal more poise than the average teenage boy, but in principle – normal behavior.

Maybe he wasn't a poof. Maybe he purposely planted the rumor to exact some kind of malicious retaliation for Draco's behavior in Potions. Except ... that didn't really make sense. It wasn't a rumor, as Draco had heard it from Potter's own mouth and was fairly certain he was the only one who knew outside of Potter's circle. And Potter couldn't have said it for Draco's benefit (or rather detriment), because he hadn't known Draco was there in the first place. Besides, why would Potter think that his gayness would bother Draco in the slightest? Even he couldn't be that daft. What did it matter to Draco Malfoy whether Harry Potter was straight or bent?

Draco watched as Potter chewed and swallowed his bite of toast. His Adam's apple slid languidly up and down his neck, eliciting the eye's attraction – er, attention. A few crumbs clung to the corners of his mouth afterward, so he licked them away with a swipe of his tongue. Absently, Draco mimicked the action, wetting his own lips.

"Morning, Draco!" trilled Pansy, startling Draco horribly and plopping down on the bench next to him. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm eating breakfast," said Draco crossly, scooting over slightly so Pansy wasn't quite so close and air could traverse the space between them.

"The ..." She pointed to her mouth and licked her lips, "and the staring into space."

"Once again, Pansy, it's called thinking. You should give it a try more often," he snapped.

"Actually, I've done just that. And you know what I've concluded?"

"I can only imagine."

Pansy smirked. "You were staring at Potter again."

"No, I wasn't."

"Come on, Draco, what's the deal?"

"Nothing. There's no deal. I think you need some more practice at the whole thinking thing, because right now it's still leading you to wonky conclusions. I was just staring into space. Not at Potter."

Pansy narrowed her eyes at Draco. Lord, she probably suspected him of hatching some plot against Potter and was bitter that he wasn't letting her in on it. Well, let her go ahead with her delusions. It was no skin off Draco's back.

Just then Goyle arrived with uncharacteristically impeccable timing, and Pansy abandoned Draco for the more forthcoming companion. Draco didn't know whether to be bothered more by the fact that Goyle was now considered the better conversationalist of the two of them, or that, once more unsolicited, his attention immediately drifted back to Potter.

Draco heard his spoon tapping absently against his oatmeal bowl, but paid it no mind. He hadn't had a chance to think about what he'd heard in the library yet. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say he'd been intentionally creating diversions to keep from thinking about it – homework, that bloody nightmare, the assembly, reading that damned romantic play. Even Slughorn had helped him out by subjecting them to a rare class-long lecture that had saved Draco from even having to look at Potter too much, much less talk to him. Out of sight, out of mind. It was a good policy.

But today they would be brewing a new potion. Talking to Potter would be unavoidable. What if he tried to seduce Draco? No, that was almost laughable – the thought of Potter seducing anyone, and the thought that he could successfully do so to Draco. Still, why did Potter have to go all queer all of a sudden? Was it for attention, now that he'd defeated the Dark Lord and didn't have any further attention from that arena, as it were?

"No," the wise, unbiased part of his mind supplied. Potter and Weasley's whole conversation had been about him wanting to keep it private, to prevent it from garnering any attention at all, even amongst his friends.

Potter suddenly glanced over to the Slytherin table, toward Draco, and Draco realized just how long he'd been staring unabashedly at the Boy Who Lived. A flush spread under his skin and he looked down into his congealing oatmeal, feeling vaguely nauseous.

"Draco, will you _please _stop that tapping?" Pansy demanded, swiveling away from Goyle.

Draco dropped his spoon with a small clatter and stood up. "No need, I'm just going to go. Class starts soon anyway." Where he would be stuck next to Potter the poof for almost two hours.

He strode from the room.

… & …

"Potter," Draco sneered, "what's the use of being a Gryffindor if you're not even brave enough to lay a hand on your own potions ingredients?"

"They're eyeballs!" Potter protested, his facial muscles tight with disgust.

"They're frogs' eyes."

"So? They're still sodding eyeballs."

"Tsk, tsk. Language, Potter."

"Come on, Malfoy, please don't make me touch them," Potter pleaded.

"Do I have to do everything? It's not hard – all I'm asking you to do is pick something up and move it two feet and then drop it. Surely even you can manage that."

"All you're asking?" Potter repeated, his voice raised with indignation. "All you're asking? They're not just 'something' to move. They're bloody eyeballs!"

"Indeed, I'd deduced that much for myself. Not to mention that you've pointed it out already – _three_ times. But not to worry. They're quite sterile, not bloody at all anymore."

"Oh, aren't you clever," Potter rolled his eyes. Draco smirked. "Anyway, it bears repeating, seeing as they're _eyeballs. _Eyeballs, Malfoy! They're horrifying!"

"Don't be such a poof, Potter," Draco taunted snidely, knowing full well before he said it that it would pierce Potter clean through his sore spot. That was, after all, the whole idea.

Potter's lips parted in surprise and he recoiled, apprehension seizing his posture, like Draco had pinched him. His eyes widened, and for a moment Draco felt an itching sense of doubt, because Potter looked rather vulnerable with his face like that – not like a hero at all – and Draco wondered whether he had crossed a line. Then Potter drew himself up and his face hardened again and the moment passed. He glared at Draco and retorted, "Well if you're such a man,why don't you do it?"

Draco scowled inwardly. He didn't want to touch the eyes any more than Potter did – they were revolting – but Potter was refusing to be goaded into doing it. "I told you, Potter, I'm not going to do everything myself, and this task is more than easy enough for you to do yourself without completely botching it."

Potter crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not touching them."

What was the point of knowing what Draco did if he didn't put it to use? He could probably mold Potter to his will with a single well-placed, well-executed gesture of a certain sort.

"You're playing with fire, Draco," warned a voice in the back of his mind.

"No, I'm playing with Potter," he snapped back.

Draco glanced at Georgia, who was fixated, as usual, on Potter's vicinity. Currently, she was eyeing Draco as if toying with the idea of coming after him for upsetting her precious hero boy. Draco smirked. That would certainly be an interesting encounter.

He looked Potter in the eye and licked his lips, deciding to see how Potter fared against his own maneuver. He was gratified to see Potter's eyes drop to his mouth and his arms relax their grip across his chest. Draco's lips quirked wickedly at the corner. He leaned slightly toward Potter. They were already only a foot or so apart, so when Draco spoke next his breath wafted across Potter's face.

"Don't be like that, Potter. It's only fair," he said. Not quite a whisper, but only loud enough for Potter to hear.

Potter gazed at him for a heartbeat, then stepped away. Cool dungeon air filled his vacated spot. Draco straightened.

"Fine," said Potter, pointedly sweeping the eyeballs up in one hand. He grimaced, then fairly threw them into the cauldron. "There," he said, turning back to Draco with a challenge in his eyes. "Happy?"

"Very," said Draco. But not as happy as he'd planned to be. He'd successfully exploited Potter's sexuality to charm him into doing what he wanted, so why did victory taste more bitter than sweet?

… & …

Harry began waking for Potions with his nerves pulled taut in anticipation of whatever subtle stunts Malfoy had in store for him, at which provocation they vibrated in an anxious, aroused dissonance. Harry never knew what to expect anymore. One minute Malfoy would be this unsettling new mixture of politeness and incomprehensible flirtation, and the next he would be his old self: cold, distant, and sneering.

Saturday morning Harry woke with a somewhat soothed peace of mind. Sure he hadn't slept well (again), and was overtired (again), and had thus overslept and was running late (again), and sure the knowledge that he would soon have to break the news of his homosexuality to Ron wound through his body like a heavy lead wire, weighing him down at all angles, but at least he wouldn't have to see Malfoy today. He had a chance at keeping his wits about him – and he'd need them today, because there was Quidditch practice. The last thing the Gryffindor team needed was for Harry's last shreds of coherency to be shot to bits by Draco Malfoy and scattered about the pitch.

When Harry made it to the Great Hall, hair still dripping occasionally onto his collar, only a few stragglers were left scattered amongst the tables. He'd almost missed breakfast.

Ron was still at the Gryffindor table – alone, because Hermione was an early riser, something Ron was most assuredly not.

"Hey, Ron," said Harry casually, leaning down to pick up a miraculously still-warm roll.

"Morning," Ron mumbled.

Harry could hear Hermione and Ginny speaking in harmony in his mind, "Now, Harry! It's the perfect opportunity! He's alone and he's subdued. Do it! Now!"

"Say, Ron ..." Harry began.

"Yeah?"

On second thought, now really wasn't a good time. He needed Ron's mind to be on the game during practice, not preoccupied with angry overtures concerning his best friend's sexuality. Not to mention it would be ideal for he and Harry to be on good terms during practice – otherwise the team's coordination would be a complete mess – which was not something Harry dared expect after he dropped the bomb. Besides, attacking Ron while his defenses were down was cowardly and low, too much like something a Slytherin would do. Telling Ron now would make him a bad captain, a bad friend, and a bad Gryffindor, Harry reasoned.

"Just make sure you're on the pitch in five minutes, okay? I can't let you slide for being late just because we're mates. Wouldn't look good." Harry tossed his roll into the roll and deftly caught it again, one-handed.

"'Course," Ron promised blearily.

Shaking his head, Harry turned and jogged away from the table toward the Entrance Hall, taking a bite of his roll as he went.

In his haste, and with his mind three different places at one – part already on the pitch, part rehearsing worse-case scenarios of coming out to Ron, and part still shrouded in the dark cloak of his nightmare – he wasn't paying attention to where he was going and walked straight into another person just inside the Entrance Hall. A tall, lithe, blond person.

Malfoy's hands caught Harry firmly by his upper arms to steady them both, and then lingered there, feeding a heady dose of heat through Harry's skin and into his bloodstream. They stood, bodies touching, faces only inches apart, and identical expressions of incredulous astonishment frozen across their otherwise dissimilar features, for a long moment, unwilling or unable to move.

"Malfoy?" Harry said, and it seemed to be some kind of trigger that brought Malfoy back to his senses because he immediately shoved Harry brusquely, so hard that Harry stumbled.

"Watch where you're going, Potter," he sneered, then swept away with an audible flap of his black robes.

Harry swallowed hard, then forced himself to keep jogging toward the Quidditch pitch as if nothing unusual had happened.

And maybe it hadn't.

… & …

Draco sat in the courtyard at lunchtime, enjoying some of the last warm rays of sun before winter would sink its chill into the very marrow of the Hogwarts grounds. He lounged alone on a bench, an apple in one hand and the copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ supported in the other.

"My only love sprung from my only hate," he half-mouthed, half-murmured to himself as the other occupants of the courtyard's lunchtime crowd bustled and chattered around him, "too early seen, unknown, and known too late. Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy."

Draco tucked his thumb into the crease of the book's spine, then let it shut and nestled it in his lap. He took a bite of the apple. No wonder Potter and Madam Pince had differing perspectives as to the genre of this saga. With all the talk of love it could hardly be anything but a romance, yet to love one's enemy spelled nothing but sure tragedy.

He chewed thoughtfully while his eyes drifted from one group of black-robed students to the next, feeling comfortable amongst the amiable din, yet calmly distanced from it, until his eyes alighted on a quartet of newcomers to the courtyard.

Draco stopped chewing. Potter met his gaze across the courtyard. Their eye contact was still and expectant for a moment. Then Draco nodded slightly, acknowledging Potter's presence, and there was no trace of animosity in the language of that gesture. Potter's answering ghost of a smile brushed across his lips as if moved by the same early autumn wind that tugged black strands of his hair across his smooth skin.

The exchange made Draco feel uncomfortably and inexplicably warm, so he lifted the book back up in front of his eyes and took another bite of the apple, filling his mouth with the sweet juice. With any luck something tragic would befall these lovers soon, before it was time for his next class.

… & …

Harry glared at Malfoy. "You are such a git," he fumed, elbowing his way past the taller boy.

"Ouch, Potter," whined Malfoy, who, to Harry's chagrin, followed him to the Potions storeroom.

"Why can't you just leave her alone?"

"Leave who alone?" Malfoy sounded almost convincingly ignorant.

"Georgia! Why do you care so much about messing with her with all this ... this touchy-feely shit you've been up to?"

"I believe the technical term is 'flirting'," Malfoy said with a smirk.

Harry blushed and pulled up short inside the Potions closet, swiveling to face Malfoy, who bumped into him due to the abrupt stop. "Watch where you're going, will you?" chided Harry, shoving Malfoy backwards and away.

Malfoy smirked. Again.

"So now you're flirting with me? What are you, some kind of bender?" Harry shot with more bravado than he felt.

Malfoy arched an eyebrow. "Takes one to know one. Or, at least, that's what they say."

Oh ... what? Harry blanched. Did Malfoy _know? _No, he couldn't possibly. There was no way. He was just teasing, needling Harry. It was all a subtle game. Like with the flirting. Which, incidentally, was something he'd never bothered Harry with until this year...

"I wouldn't know," Harry spluttered.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Relax, Potter."

Relax, I'm not going to tell? Or relax, I'm only joking?

"Just, just cut it out, okay? She's starting to get ideas."

"You don't say," said Malfoy in a low, slick voice. "Ideas? What sort of ideas might you be referring to?"

Malfoy and Harry were standing altogether too close for comfort in the small cupboard. Harry breathed through his nose so he wouldn't have to taste Malfoy's exhalations.

"N-never mind," he mumbled, blushing again and hoping Malfoy couldn't tell. Then he drew himself up and pushed his discomfiture aside. "Just stop messing with her. If you have a bone to pick with me, then pick it with me, damn it! There's no need to go through somebody else to get to me."

Malfoy's polished gray eyes bore into Harry's, reflecting nothing in their depths. "Has it ever crossed your mind," he finally said in an even, quiet voice, "that I _am_ picking it with you?"

Harry's heart abandoned the safety of his chest and began to pound in his ears. "Wha—?" he started to say, but then Ginny had the ill-timing to walk in. They both stared at her.

"Oh, hello," she said, looking from him to Malfoy and back again. "What's going on in here?"

Harry glanced sidelong at Malfoy. He was staring at the ground, his thin, pale-pink lips pursed in a frown.

"We're just getting our ingredients," said Harry around the constriction of confusion in his throat.

Ginny looked at Harry's empty hands. "Oh, I see. Of course."

Malfoy chose that moment to stride from the cupboard without a parting word or a backward glance.

"What's his problem?" asked Ginny, eyebrows raised.

"I have no idea."

… & …

Malfoy disappeared so quickly after class was over again that Harry would have started suspecting him of possessing a Time Turner like Hermione had in third year if he didn't know it was impossible. He grudgingly had to admit that it was probably just the superiority of the blond's innate grace and propensity to glide and sweep about rather than simply walking like the rest of them.

He was shaking his head in utter bewilderment at Malfoy and everything he was and ever had been (and everything he was and wasn't this year in particular), when Ginny materialized at his elbow. Well, at least it wasn't Georgia sneaking up on him, for once.

"So," she said, "how was class?"

"Oh, you know, as good as Potions gets." Harry folded up his notes and tucked them between the pages of his Potions book.

"Uh huh. So how is working with Malfoy?"

He shot her a look. "Going for the subtle approach, are we?" he said sarcastically. "Why don't you just ask me whatever it is you really want to know? It'll save us both time and wits."

"Okay, then. Why is Malfoy flirting with you?"

"Ah." So it was like that. "Right. To mess with Georgia."

"To mess with Georgia," Ginny repeated, disbelief causing her tone to go flat. "And why would he care about doing that?"

"How should I know? I can't pretend to understand what devious things Draco Malfoy derives pleasure from, or why."

Ginny bit her lip. "Are you sure it's not you he's trying to mess with?"

Harry was quiet. No, he bloody well wasn't sure. Malfoy had said a similar thing today in the storeroom just before Ginny had interrupted them, and of course hadn't had the courtesy to bother explaining himself, preferring as usual to leave cryptic comments cryptic. Harry just didn't understand why Malfoy would, out of the plethora of strategies available to him, choose to mess with Harry in this particular manner.

"See, the thing is ..." Ginny continued, sounding slightly uncertain as to whether she really wanted to say whatever she was about to say. But she was never one to mince words when it was more efficient just to chuck the whole lot at you in one go. "I'm worried that you ... that you like it," she blurted.

Harry blushed. "You think I fancy Malfoy?"

"No. I think you're a gay teenager being flirted with by an attractive boy and that it would be surprising if you didn't like it on some level. Even if it is Malfoy."

"So what's your point?" Harry snapped, embarrassed to be caught in lusty throes after his supposed enemy.

"My point," said Ginny, "is that it's Malfoy we're talking about. This flirting thing could be dangerous, especially if he can tell you like it. I mean, why is he even doing it in the first place? He never does anything without a motive, especially when it concerns you, so why should this be any different? What if he somehow, well, knows?"

Harry's gut twisted anxiously. It didn't help that the same thought had already crossed his mind earlier. Malfoy knowing he was gay ... that was a dangerous predicament indeed.

"But how could he?"

"I don't know, Harry. He's a Slytherin, remember? He's devious and sly; he could have done any number of sneaky things to find out. How he might've done it is not the point The point is that I'm suspicious. Flirting seems a lot more harmless than other things he's done to get at you, which makes me think there must be some more sinister plan behind it that we just can't see."

For some reason, Harry's feelings were torn between relief and offense that Ginny, unlike Georgia, wasn't even entertaining the notion that Malfoy might simply fancy Harry. Also unlike Georgia, Ginny was probably right.

"God," Harry muttered bitterly, "I do not need this right now on top of everything else."

"Don't worry too much, Harry. I'm sure he wouldn't really try anything. After all, you defeated Voldemort. That makes you a rather imposing opponent to consider challenging. So unless Malfoy's got a death wish, I think you're safe for now," Ginny said, but she didn't look entirely convinced by her own argument. How reassuring. "Just be careful. And don't ... don't encourage him."

How surreal, being advised not to encourage Draco Malfoy's pseudo-amorous advances. Maybe Harry really did die and was now living in some kind of bizarre, though highly realistic, purgatory where he was tormented by attraction to his flirtatious enemy.

Harry had to admit to the logic in Ginny's warning. Given seven years of precedent, it seemed preposterous to think that Malfoy's behavior could be anything but foreboding, even if it didn't always – or ever, really – seem so very malicious. What could he possibly be plotting, though? To out Harry? Or was he planning to take it one awful step further by somehow arranging to embarrass Harry for falling for his nemesis? That did seem a bit more like Malfoy's style, but he wasn't really wooing Harry. He was just ... flirting. Despite what he said, it almost seemed un-meditated sometimes. Unconscious, even.

So what the hell did it mean?

… & …

Harry cleared his throat. Ron, who was sitting across the table from him, on the other side of the slew of papers and books strewn between them, looked up.

"Y'alright, mate?" he asked.

"Er—" Harry began. Now was another perfect opportunity. The common room was empty aside from them. There were no housemates to overhear, no Hermione or Ginny to eye him, no audience to Ron's surely colorful reaction... Harry cleared his throat again, trying to dislodge the nerves that were clogging his vocal chords like phlegm. "Ahem. Just wondering if you were almost done."

"Nah. I still have four more inches of my Muggle Studies essay before I can go to bed. You?"

"Just a couple inches on this Potions essay."

Harry supposed he might feel relieved to have evaded spilling the beans for another day, but instead he just felt cowardly and, if possible, even sicker with dread than he'd been before.

It didn't help that he knew that in a few minutes he would be heading up to bed for what was sure to be another night of free-falling through impenetrable blackness and waking up in a cold sweat when he should have collided with the bottom. Then in the morning, there would be the stares with their almost palpable intensity to bruise his sensitive, overtired skin, and then two hours of Potions strung out on the unique anxiety of being in close proximity to the new capricious Malfoy. His nerves hummed with a stinging exhaustion just thinking about it.

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to bed. I'll finish this in the morning, or something."

As he climbed the steps to his dormitory, Harry recalled the vial of Nocturna Mortem Malfoy may or may not have stolen. Just now, Harry wished he had thought to do the same thing.

… & …

There was a problem. Potter was starting to crop up in Draco's thoughts in a less than flattering manner. Actually, it was a more flattering manner for Potter. Less flattering to Draco and Draco's taste and sanity.

To be clear, Potter was starting to flick to the forefront of Draco's mind whenever he let it wander. This mind-conjured Potter didn't do much; he was usually just sitting in class, biting his lip in concentration, or sitting at dinner, his face lit up with amusement, laughing at something one of his carrot-topped friends said. Occasionally, he was eating toast. Sometimes he was even walking through the corridor, tired eyes betraying his poised demeanor as he pretended not to notice the people around him sneaking curious double-takes as they passed.

No matter what incarnation of Potter it was, the image never failed to raise heat beneath Draco's skin. Not unusual or troublesome in and of itself, but it was the kind of heat rather than its existence that was cause for concern. Draco was well familiar with the heat of ire and irritation and even jealousy, but this was not any of those. This was ... Draco couldn't even say it. It was too wrong, too problematic on so many levels. Potter was making Draco think warm thoughts about him against his will.

Potter, the bane of his existence.

Potter, the definition of his existence.

Fuck Potter. (On second thought, maybe that wasn't the best expletive under the circumstances.)

This needed to stop. Now.

But how?

Draco had been doing his best to keep his mind otherwise occupied – plodding through _Romeo and Juliet_ monopolized much of his brain capacity, as did studying, and even, on occasion, spending time with Pansy and Goyle (whom, Draco wasn't failing to notice, were equally content left to their own devices when Draco begged his leave). But it wasn't working. Distracting himself was only a surface solution. There were too many moments – dull class lectures, the interim time in bed before falling asleep at night – when Draco would be caught off guard and Potter would worm his way into Draco's mind's eye.

That's it – Potter's doing it on purpose! He's gay, so he's trying to infect Draco with it, too, out of vengeance and/or spite. He'd learned some spell – probably from Granger – to use to make his face appear as a benign presence in Draco's thoughts...

Draco sighed. He was being reduced to petty and ridiculous behavior now, and it wasn't even serving its only potentially useful purpose of inciting his anger toward Potter.

Damn. What was wrong with him lately? Aside from the given (the vast, dark multitudes of the given), that is. All the pain he'd inflicted on people at the Dark Lord's command out of primitive fear and, even worse, a sick, vain hope that doing so would somehow make him feel more powerful, less like a puppet. All the obsequious ways he'd subjugated himself to his father's fickle favor. All the things he'd done and not done to open the way for the Dark Lord – the cabinet plot sixth year had only been the most directly influential of his tasks; there had been many others. Then there were simply the dozens of ways he'd failed to be a good person, a person he could take pride in embodying. The hundreds of ways he'd stabbed that innocent, hopeful boy he'd been at eleven in the back. Even his reflection wouldn't speak to him (or move, as the case was) anymore out of shame. He couldn't blame it. He didn't much like looking at himself either.

So, aside from all that, what was this new perversion of his concerning Potter?

The last thing he needed, that's what it was.

"Um, Malfoy," said Potter himself, rousing Draco from silently indulging in his various disturbing thoughts while doing nothing to assist with the potion Potter was currently botching, "do you think you could help me? Please?"

Damn Potter's eyes for widening when he admits his helplessness. "What? Can't manage alone for five minutes?"

"Malfoy ... you've been brooding for almost half an hour now. I was starting to think you'd gone catatonic or something." Draco scoffed. "Anyway, I need your help extracting the juice from the baneberry."

The potion was already that far along? Blimey.

"Naturally," Draco agreed, tilting his gaze down the slope of his nose toward Potter, whose eyes at his lesser height only reached high enough to be in line with the vicinity of Draco's mouth. "Well, we'll need the syringe for this."

It lay on the desk between them. They both reached for it; their hands bumped and their fingers overlapped. Their eyes met.

Potter blushed.

Draco blushed.

Potter immediately cast his eyes down to the desk. "Sorry," he mumbled, and withdrew his hand. Draco picked up the syringe.

"All right, you hold it still and I'll stick it with the syringe," Draco dictated.

Potter nodded his acquiescence and settled a small baneberry between his fingers on the desk. Draco arranged his hands so as best to control the angle of the syringe, but that put their skin in such proximity – the berry was so damn small – that Draco instinctively pulled back and held the syringe at the very tip instead, as far from Potter's dangerous skin as he could get without letting go altogether. It was a clumsy grip, offering little in the way of control, and the extraction would be sloppy, but it was worth it.

"You could have done that yourself," Draco reprimanded in a voice stiff with discomfiture, as he pulled the syringe from the berry and shot its contents into the cauldron, which hissed.

"It would have been a mess," said Potter, matching Draco's irritation pitch for pitch, "and you know it."

Draco's lips tightened, an unpleasant expression that was just this side of a scowl, and refused to look at Potter, who had his hands on his hips.

"Bastard," Potter muttered, turning away.

"Take it back," hissed Draco, the friction of his own frustration rubbing against Potter's and igniting.

"Why should I?" spat Potter.

"Because I may be a lot of things, but a bastard is not one of them."

Potter glared at him for a moment, perhaps reading in the cold set of Draco's features that the expletive was not merely profanity to Draco but a slur against what little honor he had left.

"Fine. Git."

"Prick," Draco retorted; what had been frigid irritation towards Potter just seconds ago inexplicably thawed to a mild sort of annoyed amusement.

"Prat," Potter finished, turning his back on Draco to face the cauldron, but not before Draco caught a glimpse of Potter's angrily furrowed lips and eyebrows relaxing in a way that belied the insult he'd thrown at Draco.

… & …

Ron Weasley was sitting on a bench in the Quidditch locker room, leaning over to tie his shoe. He sat up when he was done and shook his head vigorously to the right. His right ear was clogged with water from the shower and had made his hearing had go all wonky.

Harry rounded the corner.

"Hey, mate!" Ron greeted him enthusiastically. "Good practice, huh?"

"Yeah," said Harry distractedly, looking toward the floor and scratching the back of his head.

"Everyone else gone already?"

"Yeah."

"Figures. Let me just get my stuff and then we can go to the Great Hall for dinner."

"Mhmm," agreed Harry.

Ron went back to the showers to gather his abandoned practice robes and soap, still trying to lurch the water from his ears by jerking his head from side to side. When he came back, Harry was still standing in the same spot, his arms crossed and looking queasy.

"All right there, mate?" Ron asked, concerned. "You don't look so good."

There was an incongruous pause while Harry continued his examination of the interaction between his shoe and the floor.

"I'm great," he said in a rush, when he finally looked up and let his arms drop from his chest.

"Oh, that's good then."

"Good?" Harry repeated incredulously, eyebrows furrowing.

"Yeah," said Ron, looking at his friend oddly, "good. I was worried you were sick or something..."

"Sick?"

"Yeah, sick. But you said you're great, so ... can we go to dinner now?" Ron turned to go.

"Ron, wait." Harry's voice sounded oddly strangled. Ron turned back.

"What now? Can we talk about it as we go or something? I'm bloody starving. And it's your fault, you know. I mean, I'm not complaining – practice was brilliant – but the least you could do is let me get to dinner at a reasonable hour afterward, honestly ..." Ron trailed off when he realized Harry's confused expression was gone now, replaced with one that looked torn between laughing at Ron and puking. "What is it, Harry?" he asked.

"Ron, I didn't say that I'm great. I said that I'm _gay._"

"I know, and I said that's ..." Comprehension suddenly burst through Ron's waterlogged ears. "Wait, what?" he cried.

"I'm gay."

"Gay?" It was Ron's turn to repeat stupidly now.

"Yeah, gay," said Harry, looking uncomfortable and back to watching his foot trace patterns on the floor, "you know – poof? Bender? Fairy?"

Ron gaped. Then he shook his head and recovered himself. "I know what it bloody well means! But why are you saying ..."

"I'm saying it because I am! I'm gay! I like boys!" Harry exclaimed, his face the picture of frustration.

"No. Nuh uh. You like girls. You dated Cho. You dated my _sister."_

"I broke up with your sister," Harry pointed out.

"Okay. So what? Date someone else! There's no need to resort to blokes! Date ... date Georgia!"

"No. She's daft. Come on, Ron."

"No, you come on, Harry! You're not gay!" Ron yelled, his temper flaring red like his infamous hair.

"Yes I am!" Harry yelled back.

"Well then don't be! Go back!"

"I can't, you daft idiot! You think I chose this?"

"I don't know! Maybe! Maybe you just want more attention now that your heroics are over once and for all. 'The Poof Who Lived' – kind of catchy isn't it?" Ron said, though he knew full well it wasn't true. Shame slid in under his angry blush and raised it another degree.

"Argh!" Harry bellowed, balling his fists. "You wanker! I _knew_ you would act like this!"

"Like what?" Ron challenged hotly.

"Like an ... an intolerant, unreasonable git!" Harry's face was contorted with rage and tears. The tears were what did it. They acted like a needle, puncturing a hole in Ron's fury and letting some of the hot air out. Still, he wasn't about to back down. He glared at his friend.

"Well, you ... you just ... you completely sprung this on me! Bloody well knocked me upside the head with it!" he exclaimed. "How am I supposed to act?"

"Oh, I don't know, calmer? Reasonable? Like a human being? Like a sodding best mate?"

"Well too bad. I think we all know by now I'm the fuck-up friend," Ron snapped, his face pinched.

"Ron—"

"Go away, Harry."

"But—"

"Just go!"

There was a moment of silence filled only by their heavy breaths, then Harry stomped from the room, slamming the door behind him.

Ron sat down heavily on the bench. He'd thought things would go back to normal now that the war was over. They would graduate and then he and Hermione would settle down, and Harry and Ginny would settle down – after he'd gotten over the initial shock of their relationship he had actually become quite fond of the idea – and they'd all have kids to raise and jobs to complain about... And now ... now Harry sodding Potter had to go and throw a rock in their normality. Again.

Ron sat back hard and let his head crash against the locker. It hurt. Damn.

Maybe Hermione could talk him out of it, convince him of how irrational he was being.

Or not. What if what Harry said was true? That he couldn't go back? That he didn't have a choice? Was Ron just going to quit being friends with him?

Ron sighed. No. He wasn't. He'd stuck it out this long, hadn't he? Harry was his best mate.

He'd just have to accept it.

Bloody hell.


	10. Holy Palmers' Kiss

**CHAPTER NINE**

**Holy Palmers' Kiss**

"_Hatreds are the cinders of affection." - Walter Raleigh_

"Today you are going to be conducting tests and observations of two different potions – which you will see in front of you in the table-cauldrons at your desks. Your task is to determine which is the poison and which is the antidote," said Slughorn. Finally, something interesting that would test Draco's ingenuity. "You might do well to compile a list of distinctions before you begin. Can someone identify one characteristic of a poison for me? Mr. Potter?"

Draco lowered the hand that had been hovering above the desk back to his lap. He looked at Potter with the rest of the class. The problem, however, was that Potter didn't notice. He was scowling at his parchment and stabbing it with the sharp tip of his quill, causing ink to bleed across the page like the black blood of mortal wounds. It made Draco nauseous to look at; images he'd taken great pains to bury reared their sickening postmortem heads again, like zombies from the grave. He averted his eyes.

He'd noticed Potter speaking earnestly to a stoic Weasley at breakfast this morning, while Granger fretted and dithered and did no good. Potter must be on the outs with the Weasel again. God, but that redhead embodied the cliché, he was so damn moody and unreasonable.

"Mr. Potter?" Slughorn repeated.

Potter kept stabbing. Draco kicked him under the table. That got Potter's attention; he paused his impalement of his parchment to glare at Draco. Draco inclined his head subtly toward the front of the room. Comprehension dawned in Potter's eyes, the green going from almost black annoyance to mossy anxiety in a second.

"Um, yes?" he addressed Slughorn.

Slughorn sighed. "Never mind, Potter. Mr. Malfoy, if you please?"

Draco preened. "When a catalyst is added to a poison, it will boil, while the antidote would have no reaction."

"Indeed. However, the catalyst is unique to each poison and will need to be identified before it does any good. And that's the only hint I will give you," he said, winking indulgently. "Well, then. That should give you an idea of how to begin. Off to work!"

"God, this is impossible," Potter moaned. "How are we ever going to do this?" He slumped backwards in his chair.

"It's not so bad. We need to find the catalyst, right? I mean, that's obvious. So first, we need to identify some properties of the potions. We can start with some basics – color, consistency, acidity – and see what that tells us before we make it any more complicated. Then we can start making hypotheses about what the catalyst is. After that, it's just trial and error, process of elimination," explained Draco, well aware of how Potter was looking at him – eyes wide and clear, lips slightly parted with something akin to awe or admiration.

"Well, if it's so easy you should have just said so," he said.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Honestly, it only sounds really complicated. In reality, even you might not be a complete hindrance for once."

"Gee, I'm flattered, Malfoy. I didn't know you cared," Potter said sarcastically.

Some kind of acidic fission exploded in Draco's stomach. "I don't," he snapped, an unwarranted overreaction.

"Um, right. I was just ... never mind," muttered Potter, the admiration snuffed out like a suffocated flame.

Slughorn passed by then, and paused to give them a wobbly but stern look. "Boys," he said, "stop bickering and get to work. Now."

Draco crossed his eyes in irritation at the professor's expansive retreating back, and heard a snicker to his right. Upon investigation, the snicker had been produced by Potter, whose eyes were crinkled and bright and whose lips were quirked against a grin. Draco's belly filled with a pleasant and unusual warmth, like he'd just taken a sip of hot tea.

"Here," he said, to diffuse the moment and distract his increasingly warm body, passing Potter one of two pairs of protective goggles that were sitting next to the cauldrons, "put these on."

Potter made a face.

"Poisons can be unpredictable – simmering away as calm as can be and then suddenly hissing and spitting toxic splashes," Draco explained in his haughty professor voice. "You have to be careful – unless you want poison in the eye. Frankly, I don't care either way, but it might be a shame if the Chosen One went blind on us. You wouldn't want to let down your legions of fans, now would you?" he added, simpering snidely.

Potter put on the glasses, his face scrunched in the facial expression equivalent of sticking out his tongue. "No wonder you like Potions so much," he said, mostly to himself.

Oddly, Draco was more concerned with the way Potter's goggles were hitching on his glasses and sending them both tilting at wonky, precarious angles across his face than he was with discerning the potential slight intended by Potter's comment. Potter was attempting to straighten the mess out, but was only making things worse. Soon his glasses would snap, or the whole lot would simply fall off.

Draco sighed. "Potter," he said, "hands off. You're making yourself look like a wonky, speccy prat."

"Hey, that's not –" Potter began, but broke off when Draco lifted his hands to Potter's face and proceeded to adjust the two sets of spectacles on Potter's nose. It had nothing to do with Potter and everything to do with disliking disorder, he reasoned. Even so, he tried to avoid contact with Potter's face itself, grudgingly aware of the disconcerting danger of such contact, but his hands nonetheless brushed against the warm, soft skin of the boy's cheeks. Equal parts aghast and excited, Draco's stomach buzzed.

They were so close, too close, but it couldn't be helped – the process mandated proximity, really. How was Draco to straighten Potter's stupid glasses from two feet away? Magic didn't even cross his mind. For his part, Potter stood still and watched Draco steadily with eyes that hardly seemed to blink. God, his eyes were green, even diluted through two separate layers of smudged glass. Was it possible for anything non-magical to possess such potent saturation of eye color? If it was true that Potter had inherited his mother's eyes, then Draco couldn't possibly blame Snape for being so hopelessly smitten with her.

When the tangle was sorted, Draco stepped back and pulled out his wand, pointing it at Potter's face.

Potter stirred and retreated backwards a step. "Watch it!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, will you relax?" Draco snorted. "I'm just going to clean your lenses. There's no point in wearing goggles – or glasses, for that matter – if they're so smudged that you end up causing more damage because you can't see straight."

Potter puffed out a sigh of resignation, so Draco murmured, "_Scourgify_," and that was that. He pocketed his wand and said, "I'm going to the cupboard to look for possible catalysts."

"And what shall I do?" demanded Potter.

"Wait, and don't touch anything."

"I'm not totally useless, you know," said Potter in a quiet, even voice. It was almost more like he was angling for Draco to acknowledge some use of his than it was an effort to stir up confrontation between them. However, the idea was so silly that Draco refused to indulge Potter either way.

"You are at this," he said smoothly.

Potter scowled and sighed gustily as Draco turned his back, like Romeo after unrequited Rosaline. How ridiculous, Draco thought, but he wasn't sure whether he meant Potter's sigh or the connotation it had conjured in Draco's mind.

He was absorbed in examining ingredients in the cupboard when he was disturbed by a light stomping of feet.

"Draco Malfoy," addressed a high-pitched, imperious voice, "you stay away from Harry."

He swiveled. "Ah. McDonnell." He smirked. "And on what authority do you issue this demand?" he asked superciliously.

"I ... I'm his ..."

"Not his girlfriend, surely?" Draco feigned surprise.

"That's none of your business!" she informed him self-righteously. "You just stay away from him, d'you hear?"

Draco sneered. "And what would I want with precious Potter?"

"Oh, don't be daft," McDonnell scoffed. "It's obvious that you're a poof, and it's obvious that you want him."

Draco gaped. He bloody what? "Excuse me?"

"You heard me! It's obvious that you want him, but Harry's not like that. He told me himself," she proclaimed.

Draco composed himself, though his mind was in turmoil. Somehow, in his plotting to upset McDonnell by flirting with Potter, it had never crossed his mind that he might be considered to actually _fancy _Potter. The idea was ... absolutely alarming. "I think you may have your facts askew," he said coolly.

"I most certainly do not. Harry is straight and he would never fancy the likes of you, anyway, so just get a grip and back off."

Now Draco bristled. Him not good enough for Potter? Okay, so maybe he'd agree with that assessment privately, but other people could not be permitted to reach the same conclusion. "I will _not_ back off," he said caustically, "as I am not doing anything in the first place! And furthermore I most certainly do _not _fancy Potter!" he concluded scathingly, waiting for McDonnell to look cowed.

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "You take any excuse you can to put your hands all over him."

"I do not," Draco denied automatically, before stopping to consider that his petulance might damn him.

"You do. And I've seen how you look at him, too, like the sun shines out of his arse." Where have I seen that expression before? Draco thought sarcastically. Oh yeah – pot, kettle, black. "I do have eyes."

"What an accomplishment. So do I." Honestly? That's the best you can come up with? That's not going to convince anyone, Draco, he thought to himself. Not even you. Oh, shut up, he argued back.

"Oh yeah? Then use them, won't you, and maybe you'll see just how uninterested Harry is in you."

"Whatever, McDonnell," he drawled, hooding his features with boredom to disguise the fact that he was running out of convincing ways to deny fancying Potter. Or perhaps he had run out a few accusations ago.

McDonnell pursed her lips and flicked her hair imperiously, then turned in a huff and strutted away. Well, tried to, anyway. Being McDonnell, her efforts fell rather flat, in Draco's opinion. As if to demonstrate what a true strut was, but more to reboot his self-confidence, Draco grabbed the ingredients he'd selected before she'd interrupted him and strutted out of the cupboard after her, back to his desk.

He returned to Potter decidedly crosser than he'd been when he had left. More and more he suspected that far from doing much of anything in the way of messing with Potter, his game with McDonnell was just digging him deeper and deeper into a hole he'd be much safer out of.

Potter was sitting at their desk like a physical actualization of one of the apparitions in Draco's mind – lips biting, eyes unguarded (or maybe it was just that Draco was looking) and tired, and Adam's apple on prominent, provocative display. Draco rubbed a hand though his hair in agitation. In quick succession, he thought first that nobody should look that good on the brink of exhaustion and then that he ought to castrate or Obliviate himself for thinking such a thing. His temper deepened with frustration at the poncy turn his increasingly idiotic subconscious was taking.

"Earth to Potter," he said snidely, to remind himself how things stood between him and the Boy Who Continued Living.

Potter started. "Oh, you're back," he said without a trace of the annoyance Draco had intended to incite with his puerile greeting. "Took you long enough."

Potter stood and extended his hands toward Draco. "Here, let me help you. Pass some of those over to me," he said, gesturing at the pile of ingredients Draco was bracing precariously against his chest.

Draco recoiled. "No," he refused abruptly. He didn't trust Potter not to carelessly allow their hands to collide unnecessarily in the process. God knows the poof would probably enjoy it. "I've got it."

Potter squinted at him, but backed off.

Draco deposited the ingredients in an ungraceful heap on the table. A couple bounced and fell to the floor and Draco had to bend down to retrieve them. When he stood up Potter didn't say anything, but his silence was more pointed than any remark would have been. Draco scowled.

"So now we just drop these in and hope they don't explode?" asked Potter.

"No," said Draco petulantly, "we do not just 'drop them in.' It is a much more subtle and ..." Draco trailed off. Actually, Potter was right; Draco just would have phrased it differently. "Yeah, pretty much," he amended.

Potter smirked affably. "You sound like Snape when you start talking like that, you know. 'I wouldn't expect someone like you to be able to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making, Potter'," he said in a voice that was a cross between an imitation of Snape's monotone and Draco's smooth, sneering drawl. It made Draco's skin prickle.

Normally, Draco would be preening at the comparison to Snape, but for some reason he felt hedgy about it, wondering whether Potter meant it as a compliment or not. It shouldn't matter. It did. "Well, it's true," was what he said. "It _is _an exact art and you _don't _have the ability to appreciate it."

Potter waved a hand dismissively at Draco, like "Yeah, yeah," but all he said was, "I have the ability to drop things in pots."

"A Squib has that ability, Potter," Draco retorted. "There's no need to get cocky."

Potter raised his eyebrows and looked amused. For some reason Draco blushed, then scowled at himself. "So may I?" he asked.

"Get cocky?" Draco's tone was as measured as ever, but his pulse hiccoughed subtly in his chest for no discernible reason.

"Drop something in the pot," Potter corrected.

"Oh, right. Okay – start with that one there," directed Draco, pointing.

Potter moved to the cauldrons and set to work, but instead of joining him, Draco remained warily off to one side. Even though it was a lesser angle for supervision, it left more space between him and Potter, and that was a good thing. _It was, _he repeated for the benefit of the ponce Potter had ingratiated into Draco's subconscious. The ponce that was urging Draco to step closer to Potter, to bump softly against him and pretend it was an accident, to suggest their ingredients are subpar and maybe they should retreat to the privacy of the cupboard to restock ...

Draco flushed hot and choked internally.

He diverted his attention to Potter, hoping the task of watching (to be sure his partner didn't make a mistake that would send both of them to the hospital wing) would distract his thoughts from even more dangerous outcomes.

He watched Potter's concentration tug at the corners of his lips and eyes and the lines of his forehead as he bent his head over the ingredients. He watched Potter push his fingers absently through that thick, black mess of unruly hair that was as quintessentially Potter as the spectacles and the scar. The gesture was meant to push the overlong fringe away from dangling in his eyes, but moments later it would invariably tumble back down to ever-so-slightly curl around his glasses. Draco watched this cycle repeat itself several times before his eyes shifted to Potter's face. He was vaguely conscious of the fact that he was letting himself get distracted again, but not enough to stop himself.

That face – that oh-so-familiar face. He'd been staring at it in various shades of contempt and impetuousness, up close and blinking back at him from the cover of the _Daily Prophet_, for years. So why was it only now that it struck Draco how nice a face it was? The slightly square curve of Potter's chin, how it blended so gently into that strong jaw line, or the pleasing fullness of his lower lip, almost twice that of his upper lip yet balanced in an imperfect harmony. How all the constituents of Potter's face coalesced in a magnetic unity whenever Potter smiled, or how despite everything he'd gone through his face still managed a boyish charm. The dramatic accent of his dark eyebrows above those famous, striking eyes.

Those eyes, at least, Draco hadn't missed. They'd always burned when directed at Draco, burned so they were impossible to ignore. Or maybe they were only impossible for Draco to ignore. What was it about Potter that never failed in arousing him to some height of passion? And why was it that at the same time that he'd started noticing that Potter's famous face was nice, Potter's stares had started causing heat to rise up all over his skin and hum in his lips and seize in his belly? It wasn't a fitting response for someone like Draco to have to someone who galled him like Potter did, not at all.

Nonetheless, Draco remained fixated by Potter's face, unconsciously giving up the pretense of supervising the poison altogether. Potter's face was a fascination – always in constant motion, seeming to register each emotion as it flickered to life and died within him. It was so unlike Draco's own controlled countenance, which years of practice had trained to allow only that which Draco chose to expose to be discernible in his expression. It never faltered, except in moments of highest emotion. Funny how those always seemed to involve Potter, in some way. Funny wasn't the right word. Alarming, that was a better one. Problematic.

Potter's expression narrated the catalyst identification process without Draco needing to look once at the poison in the cauldron. First, wariness as he dropped an ingredient into the poisonous solution, then disappointment when nothing happened, and finally concentration as he chose which ingredient to attempt next.

Draco watched the rustle of Potter's robes as they followed the curves and small movements of his agile body. He watched Potter's fingers, strong and nimble, as they folded and stretched. They were nice hands: capable, but still supple. And soft, Draco could attest to that. The same sort of complementary contrast could be said of Potter himself: slender, but not scrawny, lithe, but by no means weak, volatile and even a bit dangerous (though Draco would never admit it), yet soft around the edges. Draco had a feeling that over the sinuous layer of muscle that shifted with each of Potter's movements – not that Draco was looking, god, not like that – was a layer of softness that would feel as good to the touch as the down comforter against Draco's naked skin at night.

Draco had lulled himself into a sort of trance – calm mind, thumping pulse – surveying Potter with his head cocked and his arms folded comfortably across his chest, oblivious to his surroundings and even to the currently muted logic of his own shrewd mind.

Potter turned his head and seized Draco with that bright gaze, that magnetic face. "Something's happening," he said. "I think it might be boiling."

Draco was tugged forward and accidentally-but-maybe-sort-of-on-purpose ended up directly adjacent to Potter's side. Coherent thought had pretty much dissolved. He almost felt Imperiused – moving without thinking or questioning, through a fog of content obedience. Only instead of a malevolent outside force, it was Draco's own body directing him, and he wasn't even making a pretense of fighting it anymore.

The natural swing of his hand as he moved forward caused it to bump against Potter's. Their tangential hands were swallowed by the folds of their robes. Draco's eyes, which had been vainly making an attempt to survey the contents of the cauldron, unfocused upon contact. He felt frozen, unable to move his hand away from Potter and unable to do anything more. They both stood still, staring intently into the cauldron. Then Potter moved. His hand swiveled next to Draco's until their palms faced each other. Then, hesitantly, he pressed his palm against Draco's.

Draco's skin erupted in a vibrating applause of nerves; he hadn't known hands could feel quite so alive. Potter's palm was warm and just a little bit damp. It pressed quietly against Draco's, not accidentally but not doing much else either. Draco felt like the touch was feeding some kind of dye into his bloodstream that turned his skin pink inch by inch as it left the contact point and circulated throughout his body. All his insides curled in a private, absurdly and stupidly pleased smile, and Draco momentarily forgot to remind himself to be disgusted.

He and Potter pointedly refrained from looking at each other or in any way acknowledging what was going on inside the folds of their robes, the many impossible barriers they were transcending, if not overcoming, with that small touch.

Without thinking, on some kind of subconscious, tactile instinct, Draco's fingertips curled against Potter's, a prelude to a caress. A corner of Draco's mind, apparently Imperiused by The Bard, supplied narration for the moment – "palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss ..."

With this thought, Draco's consciousness hiccoughed violently and he came back into full cognizance with a sickening jolt, ripping him out of the self-induced Imperius. What the bloody hell was he doing? He jerked away from Potter, disjointed and sudden, as if Potter's fingertips had shocked him with super-charged static. His cool countenance shattered as he gaped into Potter's nonplussed face, aghast and disgusted with himself and strangely bereft, all at once. Then he took a quick, deep breath, sucking in the scattered pieces of his composure and pulling himself back together.

"You fucking fairy," he hissed, embarrassment and panic and a confusion he didn't care to evaluate fusing into a hot, self-righteous anger deflecting from the true source – himself – and funneled toward Potter. "Keep your hands off me."

Potter looked like he'd been slapped. He was at a loss for words for a moment, his expression manifesting thorough whiplash, but then his face flushed with what seemed to be a similar cocktail of embarrassment and self-protective indignation and he whispered acerbically, "You didn't seem to be minding all that much a minute ago."

Draco swallowed a snarl because, damn him to hell, Potter was right. "I was ... paralyzed with disgust, Potter. There's something wrong with you if you mistook that for pleasure."

Potter flushed darker, giving any Weasley a run for their money (what money they had, anyway). "Really? You didn't seem so very disgusted all those times when it was you touching me and not the other way around."

Draco's pulse thundered irregularly in odd, distracting places in his body – his ears, his belly, his neck – and he felt not unlike he had behind the bookshelf that fateful afternoon. The wary calm between him and Potter was erupting – fast. Part of him was exhilarated by the elevated passion of it, and part of him was running frantically after himself, panicking about getting too far ahead of himself and not being able to catch up.

"That was not the same thing," Draco sneered – or tried to, anyway. It was really hard to muster the composure to sneer when one was quite this worked up, he was realizing.

"Why not?"

"Because I was just manipulating you, and you actually meant it," Draco's voice was escalating and he could sense other people in the room starting to take notice, forsaking their work in favor of watching the familiar wildly riled deterioration of a Potter/Malfoy confrontation.

"Manipulating me?" Potter spluttered. "To what end, exactly?" He was fairly shouting now, too.

"Mr. Potter!" Slughorn bellowed, their argument having reached a decibel that failed to escape his attention. "Mr. Malfoy!

They didn't even turn to look at him, locked together by their glares as they were, stiff and irate. With his eyes narrowed and sharp, his nostrils flared, and his lips tightened threateningly, Potter looked nothing like a docile, noble Gryffindor. He looked dangerous and erotic. Draco made an unintelligible noise of wordless irascibility.

"I suggest you take this out in the hall and resolve it before I am forced to take action against you."

… & …

Malfoy turned and stormed from the room, and at the sight of his sinewy, sleek retreating form, Harry couldn't deny that his current state was heightened by both infuriation and arousal. It was a maddening combination.

Harry stormed after the irate blond into the corridor. His anger made him oblivious to anything other than its source. He hadn't even heard Slughorn's warning and mandate, but was following Malfoy simply because all his passions were tied up in the sodding, seething git at the moment, and he couldn't possibly have dragged himself anywhere else. He didn't have that kind of control.

He slammed the door behind them and Malfoy swiveled to face Harry, eyes narrowed in such a way that it sent a jolt of adrenaline straight into Harry's gut.

"You know what I think?" Harry taunted.

"I don't give a damn what you think," Malfoy snarled.

Harry ignored him. "I think you don't have any ulterior motives, Malfoy. I don't think you're manipulating me at all. Not this time."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What exactly are you implying, Potter?" Malfoy said, fairly spitting the last word.

Harry looked hard at his rival and spoke in a voice as measured as he could make it under the circumstances, feigning a greater confidence in his words than he really had – which was none. "I think you like it," he said, pulling the accusation wholly out of his arse. He knew no such thing. He was just saying whatever he guessed would incite Malfoy the most. So far it was working.

Malfoy blanched. He looked winded, like Harry had just thrown him against the wall with his admittedly powerful Expelliarmus. _"What?_" he shrieked, all composure forsaken. Good. Harry liked him best this way. "I do not fancy you, Potter. I'm no bloody poof, unlike you."

It was Harry's turn to be disturbed. "I'm not the one who's been flirting all year!" he exclaimed, for lack of any better comeback, and unable to refute the charge with any firmer denial.

"You don't know the first thing about flirting, Potter," Draco said, his voice draining its volume and becoming all the more dangerous for it.

"Don't I? I suppose it's another of your subtle art forms, is it?"

"Yes," said Malfoy through gritted teeth. "So, naturally, you're a disgrace."

"A disgrace that made you blush well enough," Harry retorted. Okay, so he wasn't the smoothest of philanderers, didn't have the most experience ... but he'd been operating purely on instinct back there beneath their robes – hadn't been thinking or planning at all – and it had served pretty damn well before it had been interrupted.

"You were the one going all palm to palm, Potter! You were the one who decided to hold hands! That makes you the poof!" Malfoy exclaimed shrilly. Harry wasn't quite sure what exactly they were arguing about anymore.

"We weren't holding hands, you idiot. And you accuse me of mistaking something little for something more? We were barely bloody touching! And I think you're forgetting one crucial point: you fucking liked it! So if you ask me, it's you that's the poof."

"I didn't ask you, and I did not bloody fucking like it! I'm not a sodding poof, you poof!" Malfoy yelled.

Harry had never seen Malfoy lose his temper so completely, in such a spectacular fashion, before. It was something of a marvel to watch Malfoy's pale skin go splotchy magenta, to watch his gray eyes harden into sharp steel blades glinting where the light hit them, to see his lithe body tighten with infuriation, and to follow the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he panted. That is, until he lunged at Harry.

Harry flinched and his eyes closed instinctively, anticipating the blunt pain of the blow that was surely to follow. Malfoy's hands clenched around the neck of Harry's robes and yanked him forward so that their bodies collided. Harry winced. Then Malfoy's hands released Harry's robes and clutched the hair at the base of his neck, and grasped roughly at his cheek. Harry's face jerked forward and he was starting to panic at what Malfoy could possibly be doing to him when something soft collided ungracefully with Harry's mouth. For a second, Harry pushed frantically against Malfoy's body, still struggling under the assumption that he was being attacked, before his mind could catch up with what was happening to his body. In a sense, he was being attacked, but by lips instead of fists.

Malfoy was kissing him.

This realization battered into Harry like a branch of the Whomping Willow and he was frozen in a complete, marrow-deep shock. He neither kissed back nor made any further movements to push Malfoy away. He simply attempted to force his stuttering mind to process the fact that the soft, arched lips pressed purposefully against his, not moving much but a determined pressure nonetheless, belonged to Draco Malfoy. However, before Harry could even make enough progress to start reacting, Malfoy's hands let go of him for the second time and relocated back to his chest, where they shoved him – hard – backwards. Harry stumbled, still stupid with shock.

They gaped at each other, gasping. Judging by the uncharacteristic, explicit shock on Malfoy's face, Harry guessed he hadn't been expecting that any more than Harry had. It didn't matter.

Harry's senses and coherence came tumbling back and his anger surged, redoubled, through his body, sending his blood coursing and bubbling like contained lava.

"You bastard!" he yelled, recalling that Malfoy hated that term but not caring at the moment. His voice came out choked and gravelly. "Why did you do that?"

Malfoy just stared at Harry, breathing heavily and looking like he might just as easily either vomit, break down, or slug Harry.

"Why the hell did you do it?" Harry repeated, advancing on the mute Malfoy. "Why?" he demanded, his voice cracking the word in half.

Then he shoved Malfoy back squarely in the chest, and Malfoy came back to life, hitting Harry back. They fell into each other in a rush, fury feeding and growing between them as they punched anywhere they could make contact. Sloppy, blind thrusts of fists, knees, elbows, and feet toppled them to the ground, yelling incoherently. Somehow, Harry ended up on top of Malfoy, though he was doing his best to toss Harry aside and climb on top of him for the upper hand.

Peripherally, Harry heard the classroom door slam open, and then the next thing he knew the wind was being knocked out of him as he was slammed against the wall. When he sat up, he saw Slughorn standing between him and Malfoy, quivering with outrage and wand raised – he'd clearly Blasted them apart. The class spilled into the corridor behind him.

Making an effort to stand, Harry felt his energy pouring out of him in rivulets, puddling on the ground at his feet as his adrenaline cooled.

"I told you to work it out," Slughorn bellowed, "not try to kill each other! Go to the Headmistress's office! Now!"

It was a long, silent walk to McGonagall's office, residual exacerbation so taut between them it was almost tangible. For Harry's part, his mind jumped frenetically between murderous thoughts toward Malfoy and a molten, aching regret that Malfoy had pushed him away before he could properly enjoy his first kiss with someone of the appropriate gender for his sexuality. He hadn't even reached the point of wondering why it had happened; his mind was still spinning too fast to be concerned with anything more coherent than straightforward action and reaction.

The stone gargoyle opened as soon as they approached it; evidently, McGonagall knew that they'd be coming.

She greeted them with a hard glare as they stepped into the office. Harry noted that it was plainer than when Dumbledore had inhabited it – free of Fawkes and the Pensieve and the many other spinning gizmos Harry had never identified.

"I must say, with the war over and reconciliation healing old wounds throughout our world, I'd had hopes that inner school rivalries might be subdued this year, even between you two. I'm disappointed to be proven wrong," McGonagall said at last, after skinning them with the sharpness of her gaze. She looked sideways at Harry in a way that said to him as plain as could be, "Especially by you, Harry." Her reproof stung. Dumbledore had been a master at this, too – the disappointment hurt more than raised voices ever could. They waited in penitent silence for her to continue, becoming uncomfortable when the moment prolonged and she did not.

Malfoy cleared his throat. "Are we to be expelled?" he asked. "Ma'am?"

"No," said McGonagall, and Harry felt his chest sag in relief. He hadn't even thought to worry about expulsion until Malfoy brought it up. "I am going to leave your punishment up to Professor Slughorn."

As if Summoned, Slughorn entered the room just as his name emerged off McGonagall's tongue. He was much calmer now than he had been in the corridor; the quivering of his jowls had stilled.

"I was just telling these boys," McGonagall informed him, "that I will be deferring their punishment to you."

"Aha," said Slughorn, eyes alighting on Malfoy and Harry, who was sincerely regretting ever disposing of the Half-Blood Prince's book and thus forfeiting his status as Slughorn's favorite. "Detention, I think. Every night for a month. And since I sent you out into the corridor in the first place to make peace, I think it would only be fitting for you to serve those detentions together. Perhaps a month spent in each other's company will force you to reconcile your differences."

Harry's stomach simultaneously sank with dread and surged with a masochistic hope. He dared a glance at Malfoy, and immediately wished he hadn't. Worse than looking indignant or infuriated by their conjugal sentence, Malfoy looked visibly nauseous. Harry swallowed against a rising lump of suddenly bruised feelings. He looked down at his feet and nodded his understanding to Slughorn.

"Okay then, it's settled," said Slughorn, satisfied. "Report to my classroom tonight at eight o'clock. Do not be late."


	11. Freeze and Thaw

**CHAPTER TEN**

**Freeze and Thaw**

"_The opposite of love is not hate, as many believe, but rather indifference." - Dorothy Corkville Briggs_

"Harry," said Hermione haltingly, "what _happened_?"

Hermione had been simmering with concern and curiosity all through dinner after Harry mentioned his detention – Ron too, though he had pretended to be both deaf and completely absorbed by the treacle tart – but she had thankfully restrained herself from interrogating him in the midst of the busybody Gryffindor ears and those of all his zealous fans. However, she'd been prodding him ever since, unsatisfied by his vague answers.

Harry scowled at the Transfiguration essay he was unsuccessfully trying to complete before detention, which was in ... he checked: twelve minutes. He sighed, then began chewing on his lip. It wasn't going well. He had a headache from obsessing all day long, and even still his mind could only muster two or three minutes of uninterrupted focus on Transfiguration before boomeranging back to a certain blond frustration.

"Harry?" she repeated tentatively.

He looked up at her. "I told you," he said, avoiding glancing over at Ron, who was in turn avoiding glancing over at him, though clearly only pretending not to listen. It was harder to ignore each other now than it had once been, since although he and Ron were on the outs, Harry and Hermione were still speaking and Hermione and Ron were hardly ever apart. Still, they were doggedly trying. "We got in a fist fight, so Slughorn sent us to McGonagall, who let Slughorn decide to give us detention. We're lucky we weren't expelled."

Honestly, it felt odd to be referring to Malfoy and himself as a "we," like some kind of cohesive unit, even now. Especially now.

"But why?" Hermione asked.

"Why what?"

"Why did you get in a fight? I don't understand," she pressed, such an expression of concern on her face that Harry couldn't allow himself to be annoyed with her for pushing him to elaborate on a subject she had to realize he was uncomfortable with. "I thought you two would be beyond this sort of thing this year, considering everything that's happened," she continued, echoing McGonagall, "but now it seems like it's only gotten worse."

Harry sighed again to himself and abandoned the Transfiguration essay as a lost cause.

"Hermione ..." he said, "I don't know what else to say. We were bickering like usual—"

"They were having a near full-on shouting match," Ginny interjected, leaning over Harry's shoulder.

"—so Slughorn sent us into the hallway to calm down," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. "We kept arguing and Malfoy ..." kissed me, out of bloody thin air, for some goddamn, unfathomable reason, Harry's mind filled in. "He ... crossed a line," was what he said out loud. "So I hit him."

Hermione digested this for a moment, frowning slightly. "But what line did he cross? What did he say to make you hit him? You never hit anyone, Harry!"

Harry shifted in his seat and avoided Hermione's eyes.

"Harry ..." she said, "I just get this feeling that you're not—"

Harry stood abruptly. "Ah! Look at the time!" he exclaimed, interrupting her. "I've really got to go. I can't be late."

Hermione gave him a reproving look that said she knew exactly what Harry was doing, but let him go. Harry was almost to the portrait hole, when a hand clasped his shoulder.

"Harry," said Ginny, climbing out after him, "I'll walk with you."

Harry cast her a wary glance, but, knowing that she was unlikely to be dissuaded, didn't say anything. They walked in silence for a moment, Ginny contentedly biding her time and Harry on tenterhooks waiting for her to be out with it.

"So," she said at last, "tell me the uncensored version."

"Er, what?"

She shot him a come-on-Harry-don't-be-daft look. "The uncensored version of what happened with Malfoy earlier. I'm not buying that nonsense that you fed Hermione. I've been watching you two all term, and I was there today, so I know you're leaving out the juiciest bits."

"I didn't lie to her," Harry asserted, mostly in an attempt to deter Ginny long enough to postpone this interrogation, rather than to defend his principles.

"I know, but you didn't give her the full story either, obviously. So come on, out with it!" she demanded.

Harry was torn: he wanted desperately to rant and vent his obsessions to a sympathetic pair of ears, somebody who would hopefully be able to explain to him what had happened and why. Somebody who could rationalize for him a Malfoy who kisses him instead of shredding him with cold eyes and sharp sneers. Ginny was the best and only candidate to be that somebody. Yet what had happened felt extremely, excruciatingly private, like exposing it to anyone would be a complete betrayal of himself and even, oddly enough, Malfoy. It was like a secret they shared, confusion and angst-ridden as it was, and Harry somehow didn't feel liable to reveal it without Malfoy's consent. Or at least until he was more sure of why it had happened, what it might mean, and, just as importantly, what he wanted it to mean. Moreover, he wasn't entirely sure he _wanted_ to reveal it yet, Malfoy's permission or not. It was far too raw, too personal and fresh and still smarting.

"I ..." he began. He didn't know what to say.

Ginny took his elbow gently, reminding him with that small gesture of their almost wordless companionship. She looked at him expectantly with her brown eyes, warm like honey on browned toast, and he felt reassured in a quiet, abstract way.

"I can't really talk about it yet," he said.

She looked at him for one more moment, then nodded and turned away. It was a mark of their closeness that she understood him well enough to relent in her pushy quest for details. She didn't force her small reserves of patience into action to conquer – at least momentarily – her consuming curiosity for just anyone. Immeasurably grateful, Harry wound an arm around her waist and hugged her close, letting her resilient, innate Ginny-ness seep into him and cushion him for the three hours of detention ahead. At the same moment that he realized he was shaking with nerves, Ginny took his hand and squeezed it.

All too soon, they were outside of Slughorn's classroom. Harry would see Malfoy already inside, watching him through the open door with a pinched expression. He looked away when he saw Harry looking back at him. Harry's stomach lurched.

"You'll be fine," said Ginny at his queasy expression.

Did Harry imagine it, or did he see her lips quirk as her eyes darted into the classroom, then back to Harry?

"Go on," she said, and then gave him a gentle push toward the classroom. When Harry turned to look after her, she was already halfway down the corridor, long hair the color of rouged lips swishing coquettishly across her back.

Harry faced the classroom and, steeling himself, walked in.

"Ah," said Slughorn, looking up from his desk, "Mr. Potter. You've arrived just in time." As if to dramatize this point, Slughorn's clock struck 8:00 with an authoritative click. "I need to fetch something from my office before we begin. Please wait here with Mr. Malfoy," he directed, gesturing toward the empty seat next to the object of Harry's all-consuming obsession for the last eight hours.

Slughorn left, and they were alone.

Harry lowered himself gingerly into the seat, expecting Malfoy to spit out some snipe about how sweet it was that he was escorted to detention by his girlfriend. The poison for his retort was already pooling on Harry's tongue, but the comment didn't come. Malfoy was silent. In fact, the only noise to stir the silence between them at all was the clicking tick of the clock marking each stubborn minute.

After three such minutes, Harry risked a glance at Malfoy. He was sitting stiffly in his seat, staring straight ahead, pointedly acting as if Harry were not there. He was doing such a thorough job that, if it weren't for the clench of Malfoy's jaw betraying some inner tension, Harry was almost made to feel as if he were wearing his Invisibility Cloak.

He hadn't known what to expect of their detention – how Malfoy would treat him – but after the events of the morning, he certainly hadn't expected to be ignored. It bothered him more than any snide comment would have. Far more.

Slughorn came back then, raising his eyebrows as he entered the room, clearly surprised to find them waiting so quietly and, by all appearances, benevolently.

"All right," he said, setting a bucket down in front of them, "here you go – seeds harvested by Professor Sprout's second-years. Sort them. I'll be in my office. But," he angled his head sternly, "do not make the mistake of thinking I won't know if you're not working. Understand?"

Harry nodded, unsure whether he was up to the task of producing words and deciding not to risk it. Presumably, Malfoy did the same – though since he didn't look to see, Harry couldn't be sure – because Slughorn left the room.

Again, Harry waited for the requisite disdainful remark from Malfoy. "Sorting seeds? This is Squibs' work!" and again he found himself disturbed and oddly disappointed when it didn't come. But surely, Malfoy couldn't keep up this eerie, wholly detached silence now that they shared a task; he'd have to speak and acknowledge Harry.

Neither of them moved for a long moment, not wanting to be the first to do so and not wanting to be responsible for any collision of hands in the process.

Finally – finally – Malfoy spoke. "You pour out half, and I'll take the rest," he directed in a flat voice.

As far as acknowledgements went, the animation was not what Harry could have hoped for. Not even close to the standard he'd come to expect during their history of animosity. There wasn't even a sneered "Potter" to add any sort of personal touch, as if Harry didn't even matter enough to warrant addressing by name anymore.

The hurt was blunt and unexpected. Whatever had been between them, Harry had always thought there'd at least been a thread of respect, a cord of interest that wouldn't allow them to leave each other alone. Now, even that had evidently been severed. When Harry was a legend to the entire wizarding world, why did he care so much more that Draco valued him at nothing? Why did Malfoy's opinion outweigh millions of others, so that the regard of an entire nation became irrelevant? It shouldn't, but it did. Harry had never valued the public's opinion the way others in his position might have, and besides, Malfoy was here and immediate and that made all the difference.

This frigid tolerance – Harry now understood with violent clarity the expression 'cold shoulder' – didn't make any sense, not after what Malfoy had done just hours before. However, sense hardly mattered. When had it ever factored into their relationship? If this was how Malfoy was going to be, there wasn't a lot Harry would bloody well do about it. But it stung. It stung a lot, too much. And it stung even worse because Harry didn't understand why he was letting it sting like this – how he _could_ let it sting like this – even after today. If anything, silent treatment from Malfoy ought to be a blessing. So why wasn't it? Why did it feel like the cruelest of slights?

Harry gritted his teeth and ordered himself not to cry over Draco Malfoy, at least not until he was out of the blond's sight. How pathetic that out of all the interchanges they'd exchanged over the years, the only one that reduced Harry to the point of tears was today's combination of spite, the first action between them to approach something nice, and now this determined impassiveness.

Harry focused on the ticking of the clock and tried to tie his thoughts to it, the mindless to and fro.

They worked in silence for an impossible three hours, at which point Slughorn returned to dismiss them. Harry ached from the stiffness and the throbbing numbness he'd forced his mind into to avoid thinking about anything other than the growing piles of seeds before him.

Afterward, Malfoy strode coolly out of the room without a word to either of them, and Harry couldn't recall him looking at him once.

… & …

Draco slammed his door behind him with a snarl and fell heavily backwards against it, letting his head thump into the wood unrestrained. It made a loud crack and hurt dully, but not as much as the last three hours – no, the whole sodding day – had. A desperate turmoil had been welling inside him all day – the altercation had done nothing to dispel it – and was now spilling over in a mad, dramatic rush in the privacy of his chamber.

He had been stoic all day: not now.

With this thought, he pushed away from the door and strode across his room to his desk with a hot purpose. He snatched up his glass ink well and spun, throwing it against the wall. It shattered, raining sharp glass shards onto the floor, followed by the dark streaks of ink bleeding down from the site of the wound.

It wasn't enough. He growled; he didn't even know he _could_ growl, thought he was more human than that. It wasn't enough either. He balled his fists and yelled wordlessly until he ran out of air, then he swept his arms across the surface of his desk, sending what little clutter there was flying to the floor with a crash. He did the same thing to the surface of his dresser. Then he stood still, panting and feeling as battered as if he had been attacking himself rather than his belongings. Or maybe it was the aching of the bruises Potter's fists had installed on his skin.

With sudden trepidation, Draco remembered his vial. He kept it on his dresser. Had he tossed it off with the rest and destroyed it? No, there it was on his nightstand, where he'd set it last night, too tired to get up to put it back. Thank god.

Draco sagged into his armchair. Vaguely, he realized his face was damp. Bloody hell, how had he let this happen to himself? How could he have let himself become such a mess? Get so carried away?

How could he have let himself kiss Harry sodding Potter?

Of all the stupid things he could have done – slugged Potter first, pulled out his wand, used an Unforgivable ... this was the absolute worst. This was the unthinkable.

That was the problem, wasn't it? He hadn't thought about it, had hardly even realized what he meant to do until he was already doing it. And by then it was too late, even when he came to his senses and shoved Potter away.

The shock in Potter's eyes – that was bad. Potter calling him a bastard – that was worse. Potter attacking him – well, that was good, because all the rest paled in comparison to how fucked in the head Draco was for having done such a thing in the first place, and he'd needed an outlet for his ensuing revulsion and anger and crushing comprehension of _just how fucked he was._ Trust Potter to give it to him.

Draco rose, agitated again, and began pacing back and forth in front of the low-burning embers in the fireplace.

There was an issue. A big issue. A monumental, impossible, inescapable issue. Not that he hadn't tried. To escape, that is. He'd been skirting around this issue for months, squinting at it, trying to turn his back on it and make it disappear. If you can't see it, it can't see you, right? Wrong.

It was Potter's fault, as usual. Everything traced back to Potter. Draco ought to be used to it by now, he supposed, but there it was. Potter _was_ the issue, and Draco had always been dancing around him, feinting and retreating, not getting too close, never straying too far. And look where it had gotten him.

He should have turned his back on Potter – and thereby avoided this issue from the beginning – years ago on their first train ride to Hogwarts. After all, Malfoys are never turned down; Malfoys vie for no one's attention.

It was time to stop being so passive about this, Draco decided. To stop making excuses. To stop acting like it might take care of itself, just go away quietly. It was time to take action. "What exactly would you call your little hallway stunt, exactly, if not action? asked Draco's daft inner voice. Draco told it to shut up. It was time ... It was time to invite Pansy to visit his room.

… & …

The next day was Saturday, so there were no lessons. Draco spent the day in his room, ostensibly studying but not having much success. In the evening, Slughorn owled him to cancel detention for the night – just this once, he emphasized – because he felt ill.

All day, Draco had done his best to distract his thoughts of Potter with more suitable thoughts. He replayed his interactions with Pansy, her overtures of flirtation and his compliant reciprocations. He searched for warmth in the memory of every touch, the sense of comfort derived from sharing surfaces of skin with another human being. He justified the low tally of such instances he was able to recall by affirming that his heart had never been in it, not really. But that could change.

At dinner, he let Pansy sit too close to him instead of shifting pointedly away. He tried to appreciate the warmth of sharing his space with another person, her body side by side to his along all contours. He wondered why that appreciation came so instinctively in Potions class and so reluctantly now, and told himself it was because more people were watching here and he wasn't much of an exhibitionist. He withstood Pansy's incessant, irrepressible chatter without making any snarky comments. He focused all his attention onto her until she glowed, and willed himself not to glance over toward the Gryffindor table. Not even once. Okay, maybe once, but there was no staring tonight, brooding or ... otherwise. When Pansy's hand landed on his thigh under the table – god, she was easily encouraged – he managed to keep from jumping. She'd startled him, that was all.

"So," she said, as the main courses disappeared and were replaced by deserts, "what gives, Draco?"

"What do you mean?" Draco asked, helping himself to a lemon tart.

"I mean, you're in such a good mood. Something must have happened."

Draco scoffed wryly. "Really, Pansy, I'm not."

"Well you're not scowling, beating your silverware, ignoring us, or trying to glare Potter into an early grave," Pansy pointed out. "For you, that's pretty much the equivalent of dancing on tables and handing out flowers."

Draco wasn't about to get into the reality of his current mental and emotional state with Pansy, so he shrugged.

Not wanting to look into Pansy's face, flushed unattractively with the efforts of flirtation and the excitement that it was, tonight, ostensibly working, Draco turned his eyes across the table. The view there was hardly an improvement. Goyle had two slices of cake, two pastries, and a cookie balanced on his plate and was somehow endeavoring to eat them all at once.

Draco took a small bite of his tart. "God, I love lemon pie," he said around his mouthful, to change the subject. Not up to his usual par of subtlety, but then, he was under pressure.

"It's kind of like you, isn't it?" said Pansy, licking the finger she'd used to clean the lemon residue of her own tart from her plate. "Bittersweet, I mean."

God, that was actually halfway perceptive, Draco thought. That is, until she continued.

"I like it, too. It's _delicious,_" she purred, lowering her eyelashes and staring blatantly at the bite of lemon tart that was passing between Draco's lips at that moment. His mouth being the object of her objectification.

Draco closed his mouth around the spoon and swallowed quickly, then returned the spoon to his plate and pushed it away.

"Not going to finish that?" Goyle asked, ogling the half-finished pie lustily.

"No," said Draco.

"I'm not going to finish mine, either," said Pansy, pushing her plate toward Goyle as well and smiling sideways at Draco as if they were conspirators.

Draco resisted pointing out that as the piece on her plate was her second, it was hardly the same sentiment. She would certainly take it as a jab at her unproblematic weight, and although Draco wouldn't normally care whether or not Pansy projected her petty insecurities onto perfectly banal statements, tonight having her in a tizzy with him would be counterproductive. So instead, he rewarded her with a slow reciprocating smile, even – agh, how he had fallen – batting his lashes low over his eyes. At least it had the intended effect. Pansy flushed deeply and looked quite pleased with herself.

"So, want to come back to the common room tonight?" she offered as usual, with only a slight extra layer of expectancy. She was a Slytherin, after all; she did have an ounce or two of realism in her.

"Actually," began Draco. He paused to clear his throat and glance at Goyle, who, now finished eating, appeared to be listening attentively. Draco lowered his voice. "I was wondering if you wanted to come back to my room tonight."

Pansy's eyes lit up. She, too, glanced at Goyle, so Draco added in an undertone, "Just you." The light in her eyes doubled and the curl of her lips was wicked and decidedly Slytherin.

Then her eyes narrowed. "You're not drunk, are you?" she accused. Draco was truly taken aback by this. Apparently visibly so, for Pansy elaborated self-defensively, "Sorry, it would just explain your ... friendliness."

"Honestly, Pansy." He tried to laugh, but it sounded too fake and strange so he stopped immediately. "I'm not drunk. Just tired of going back to my room alone."

"Oh," she purred, placated. "Well, there's no need for that..."

Draco rather thought there was, but as he knew their reasoning followed very different definitions of 'need,' he didn't argue. Instead, he stood up and Pansy followed suit.

Goyle watched them, confusion darkening his features. Draco didn't doubt he understood what their joint departure implied – he knew Goyle wasn't quite that thick – but rather suspected Goyle was recalling several conversations they'd had in which Draco had expressed exasperation with Pansy's not-to-be-deterred attentions.

"We're just going to ... ah ... check out a book from the library," Pansy offered as cover.

Draco rolled his eyes. "That was unnecessary," he told Pansy as they exited the hall. "He knows where we're going."

"Yeah, well," protested Pansy, "anyone could have been listening. You said you couldn't afford trouble this year; I was only watching out for you, Draco," she simpered.

That had been a convenient excuse rather than a legitimate concern. Draco didn't think there was really any rule against having female company in his room, especially as he was an eighth-year and living in already rampantly exceptional circumstances. He didn't mention this to Pansy, though. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have her being discreet.

"Malkin's," he requested of the aristocratic lady when they reached the stretch of wall where her portrait hung.

"Malkin's?" Pansy repeated as she followed him inside. "That's a weird password. Did you choose it?"

Draco hummed silently in the back of his throat in discomfort. "Yes ... after all, you know how I love handmade clothing, and her robes are simply the best," he lied. Actually, he did adore Madam Malkin's wares and handiwork; it just wasn't the reason behind his password choice.

"Are you sure it's not because you have a little crush?" she teased, wandering into the room ahead of Draco and beginning to inspect it.

"What?" Draco's voice came out off-pitch. "A crush? On who?"

Pansy paused her exploration to give him an odd look. "Madam Malkin," she said. "God, Draco, I was just kidding. Relax, will you? It's not as if I really think you fancy her..." She trailed off, squinting in a manner that was probably meant to be suggestive, or even seductive, but really just made her look like the sun was in her eyes.

Draco did relax, arranging himself to lean cavalierly against the closed door while Pansy continued her circuit of his room. She finished her loop and came to stand in front of him.

"Well, it's not very homey," she said in verdict, "or luxurious."

"Privacy's a luxury," Draco pointed out.

"If you say so. But you can't always be alone," Pansy chided. "Sometimes you have to let people in," her tone dipped suggestively, "unless you want to become a shriveled," she stepped closer, "horny," another step, "old hermit."

She was standing almost chest to chest with him now, angling her own chest up toward his face to best attract his attention. He glanced at the ballooning flesh and then at her face and couldn't decide which was the lesser of two evils. He settled on her face. Undesirable as it was, it didn't make him quite as uncomfortable.

"Well I don't think—" Draco began to protest, but he was cut off when Pansy abruptly threw her arms around his neck and proceeded to descend upon his mouth with her over-wide lips as if she'd like to swallow it off his face.

"Hmph," Draco gargled in surprise.

He'd vaguely realized that this occurrence – them snogging – would be a likely result of bringing Pansy back to his room (theoretically, that was the idea) but he hadn't really considered the reality of an aroused, advancing Pansy.

It was a distasteful reality. Pansy was too eager – slipping her tongue between Draco's parted lips before he could gather himself enough to think to close them. She was pressing her body closer to his while simultaneously pulling him closer to her. Their bodies were poorly aligned for such proximity, so it was all hipbones and discomfort. Her hands clutched at his cheeks, pulling his skin taut in an exuberant, ungentle manner that pinched. Draco tried to relax into her ministrations, had ideas about kissing her back, even, but the mingling of their mouths was making awful slurping sounds that made him think they were doing nothing more sensual than exchanging drool. He almost gagged.

_What's wrong with me?_ he wondered, with an accompanying clench of oncoming tears seizing his throat.

He took Pansy by the waist and pushed her away. He tried to push somewhat gently – her being a girl and therefore warranting somewhat more care than when shoving away someone more sturdy like, say, Potter – but he was more concerned with just _getting her away_, so he was more brusque than he meant to be.

"Draco, what is it?" Pansy's eyes were swirling and unfocused, like tops spinning in her head. Draco couldn't look at them, so he turned his face away. "Do you want to move somewhere more comfortable?" she suggested.

"No!" he barked. "I want you to go now," he said more quietly.

"Go?" she echoed. He still wasn't looking at her, but he could picture her face: indignant, dramatic, flushed.

"Please," he pleaded, in a rare display of supplication. "Just, please, go." He hung his head and braced a hand across his eyes.

"Fine," Pansy huffed. "But don't think you can treat me like this and expect –"

"Go!" he begged, unable to listen to Pansy rant about self-respect she'd abandon the moment he renewed his interest. Not that that would _ever_ be happening again.

For a moment, he thought she would refuse, because she didn't move, but then she slipped roughly past him and out the door without another word.

Draco staggered to the bed and sat down on the edge, touching tentative fingertips to his swollen mouth. His eyes felt too large for their sockets with the pressure of unshed tears, and his head cramped.

He decided there was no point in holding back tears now, when he'd lost all his dignity, so he lay back on the bed and let them come streaming down his cheeks.

His plan had thoroughly backfired. Instead of proving that his issue with Potter was a fit of mania, a fluke, he had proved the opposite.

He had told himself for years that the reason he held himself off from Pansy – from dating in general – was because he was above the dithering behavior of crushes. But the real reason, he knew, deep down in a part of himself he kept locked at all costs, was that he was hoping that if he refrained from fancying anyone, there would be no worry of fancying ... the wrong ones. He didn't dally with anyone because he knew the moment he did he wouldn't be able to lie to himself anymore. It had been a matter of denying and delaying the inevitable.

He had broken that rule tonight, out of desperation to be proven wrong. Now he wished he hadn't taken the risk. He also wished he didn't always have to be so right all the time. Why couldn't he be mistaken, just every so often? When it was important?

Draco reached for a pillow and hugged it to him. Here he was, alone with the sick truth: girls were a sexual repulsion to him. He could try to pass it off as a Pansy problem, but the truth was that there was more to it than her disgraceful kissing ability. No, something between them had been wrong on the most basic, chemical level. He could taste it in her saliva and his own revulsion.

Draco buried his wet face in the generous softness of his pillow and let it absorb the moaning whimpers of his sobs, embarrassed by such weakness even when he was well and truly alone. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried like this. Maybe never. It almost felt good. He'd always been in complete control of his own self, if nothing else, but it was almost reassuring to know that in the loss of that self-control he had sunk to his most vulnerable openness. There was comfort in knowing he could let the truth in now and it couldn't do any more damage than he'd already done to himself.

There was no use fighting it anymore; he was too weak to ward it off anyway. So he let it in, let it slip inside him and curl up and start making itself at home. He was acutely aware of its distinct and disconcerting foreignness, and suspected he would be for a while, but it was curiously relaxing, this hollow acceptance. This letting his true self take control. He'd been at it for so long that he'd stopped being aware of how much energy it took to keep himself repressed to the point of constant composure, how stiff it made him.

There would be hell to grapple with when he woke up, he knew, but for now Draco snuggled under the covers, squeezed the pillow to his body, and allowed himself to wish it were another person holding him close, fitting supplely along every contour of his body. A messy-haired, lithe-bodied, magnetic-eyed person.

The ponce he'd been keeping securely bound and gagged in his mind, for the most part, freed itself under his lax supervision. It removed the gag from its mouth and whispered: "You have a crush on Harry Potter," and instead of telling it to shut up, instead of locking it back up in the recesses of his consciousness, Draco replied – very softly and only within his mind – "I know."


	12. Catharsis

**CHAPTER ELEVEN **

**Catharsis**

"_Love and hatred are not blind, but are blinded by the fire they bear within themselves." - Friedrich Nietzsche_

Draco woke up feeling hollow and weak and a little puffy, but cleansed. Like he'd been thoroughly and forcefully rinsed and then wrung out, clearing away the debris of the lies and repressions he'd clogged himself with out of a deluded sense of self-preservation. He slid out of bed, realizing he'd fallen asleep in his clothes from yesterday. It was yet another thing to strike off the list of 'Things Draco Malfoy Never Does.' He went into his bathroom and splashed cold water on his face to wake himself up, then lifted his eyes to the mirror.

The same face peered back at him: the same tilted, translucent grey eyes, the almost invisible, blond, arched eyebrows, the high, subtle yet defining cheekbones, and the thin nose. The soft blond hair was now long enough to begin toying with the idea of drifting onto his forehead.

He realized he'd been expecting to look different, to be somehow marked by what he'd acknowledged last night. It had changed his inner composition irrevocably, so it only seemed fitting that his outward composition should have shifted as well. He was both relieved and regretful that it hadn't. He didn't want people to be able to give him a once-over and _know, _but it had been such an impossible, heart-rending thing to acknowledge, such a monumental personal upheaval, that he felt the outside world should have felt the change, too, on some level. He leaned closer to the mirror, as close as he could get without losing view of his whole face, looking for some physical indication that a new Draco Malfoy now inhabited his body. Still nothing.

And then, though he didn't move a muscle, the corner of his reflection's mouth twitched ever so slightly upwards.

When Draco approached the Slytherin table a half an hour later for breakfast, he saw Pansy and Goyle sitting across from each other. The sight struck Draco as oddly domestic and cozy, the two of them sharing space and sipping coffee. It made him ache a little, in a corner of his heart he hadn't known existed. It must belong to the new Draco.

Pansy glanced over suddenly and noticed his approach, then forcefully set her coffee mug down and stood up. She stormed away from the table, pointedly not looking at Draco as she passed him but staring stonily ahead. Somewhat to Draco's surprise, Goyle stood up to follow. He shrugged apologetically at Draco and his body language, ever more eloquent than his tongue, seemed to say, "What can you do?" Then he, too, walked away.

Some kind of alliance appeared to be forming between the two of them, Draco mused as he sat down by himself, a pale deserted island in a sea of black robes. As it stood now, it looked as if his friend count had dissipated from 2 to 0. It struck him that he should be more bothered by this, but he'd never measured himself by the number of people who liked him – if he had, his value would be even lower than he currently appraised it at – and he had more pressing concerns this morning, of all mornings. Far more pressing indeed.

Such as the fact that in twenty minutes he would be seated next to Harry Potter for almost two hours, since today was double Potions. Not only would he be seated next to Potter, but he would be seated next to the... Draco shut his eyes and his stomach knotted. The person responsible for putting those knots in his stomach. The object of his oh-so misguided affections.

Draco really had to hand it to whoever was in charge in the larger-than-life scheme of things: this was one sick twist he had never seen coming.

Last night's submission to the invasion of the truth had been a quiet thing, sneaking into his mind under the cover of darkness. Now, rather than being able to chalk it up to the folly of semi-consciousness and over-wrought emotions, the light of day seemed to be illuminating every newly clear corner within Draco, showing him just how surely this truth had taken root in him. It was reaching eagerly up toward the light, preening and begging for attention.

He would not be able to ignore Potter today.

As if thoughts were magnets, Draco turned his eyes toward the Gryffindor table. Potter's mop of hair was just visible over the edge of the _Daily Prophet_, which he appeared to be using as a screen to hide behind rather than a vehicle of news as it was intended.

Draco was equal parts disappointed to be thwarted in his effort to get his first view of Potter since the Acknowledgement (as he was referring to it now, not quite as willing to define it fully conscious as he had been half-asleep), relieved to avoid what was sure to be a disconcertingly evocative reaction to Potter's familiar – though not any less striking for it – face, and anxiety that that reaction would now be doomed to take place in person.

Draco's own owl deposited the _Daily Prophet_ on his plate then. Potter's face blinked up at him from the front page. The headline announced the Ministry's desire to name their new wing after the wizarding world's poster child. Seeing the miniature Potter fidget in the frame – it was a posed photo, presumably from some victory photo shoot or another – gripped Draco with a fresh wave of panic.

What was he thinking, nursing a crush on Potter? It was ludicrous!

Potter was... well, he was Harry Potter, the darling of the wizarding world. And Draco was a Malfoy – the scourge of the wizarding world. Gay or not, Potter would never consider Draco that way. The fact that even a tiny bit of him held a flame of hope for this possibility proved how barmy Draco's mind had gone around the edges.

Draco evaluated the food on his plate and came to the obvious conclusion that there was no way he was going to be able to keep it down – if he was even able to force it down in the first place. Not feeling as he did, nearly sick to his stomach with anxiety and uncertainty and a nagging hope that he couldn't quell no matter how many times he said firmly to himself, "Harry Potter will never fancy you. Harry Potter will never fancy you."

Across the hall, Harry Potter violently shook out his sagging newspaper like it was Voldemort's eighth Horcrux, so that it stood straight again. Draco pushed his plate away, food untouched.

"Be calm," he told himself while walking to Potions a few minutes later. "Deep breaths. Relax. It's only Potter. The same prat he was yesterday. There's no need to get so worked up just because you might possibly fancy him, just a little bit."

He'd been making progress until he mentioned the last bit, which had the adverse effect of jump-starting his pulse. Again.

"Seriously," he lectured himself, "get a grip. He is not going to find out, because you are not going to tell him. And he is not going to be able to tell, because he can't read minds – Snape said he was a crap Occlumens, so I'm sure his Legilimency is just as pants. So just keep it cool, and it will remain your secret. Nobody will ever know, and you will only think about it _a little bit, _and it will be fine."

Draco paused outside the classroom, then took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Potter's head was bent over his textbook, so Draco would be able to take his seat without incident. It was going to be fine, it was, but then –

But then Potter looked up and straight at Draco with those eyes that seemed to have been specifically designed to disrupt Draco's composure. Draco froze next to his seat.

Draco hadn't, of course, expected this to be an easy transition – from thinking of Potter as his prat Potions partner to the person who set his heart to pounding – but he wasn't prepared for the deluge the sight of Potter would spawn in him. Excitement, titillation, nervousness, panic, and even anger (that Potter had the power to put Draco in such a state) flooded into his stomach, churning into one incomprehensible mess that spread throughout his body so rapidly that in a matter of seconds his skin was flushed and his hands were shaking and he felt a bit lightheaded.

"Hi," he choked out.

In response, Potter only regarded him with hard eyes and a flat mouth.

Draco's heart sank into his stomach. Somehow, he managed to sit.

Bloody hell. This was bad. Not only was he suddenly holding a blistering torch for Potter that he didn't know what to do with, but he'd also managed to douse any flickering reciprocation of fondness Potter had felt for him that had made their polite interactions of the past few weeks possible. And his heart now felt like it'd been kicked as consequence.

It wasn't as if he'd expected anything to actually _happen. _Of course not, he reminded himself, to soothe the ache. He wouldn't have allowed it, even if it had begun to seem possible. Now there was nothing to worry about. He ought to feel relieved, if anything. If Potter wouldn't even speak to him, Draco's secret was as safe as it could be.

Except... he didn't feel relieved. Not even close. Draco frowned and forced his limbs to stop vibrating with residual adrenaline.

"Books away," Slughorn commanded. Draco started. He had actually managed to forget that they were in class, "and quills out."

What was this? Draco glanced around the room with wild eyes that landed on the blackboard, where he read: POP QUIZ TODAY. Oh, hell. Well, that explained why Potter had actually been reading his textbook.

A parchment covered in equations and diagrams was slipped onto the desk in front of him. Okay. He could do this. Potions, at least, was straightforward. Variables always behaved. Outcomes could always be predicted. Patterns were never diverged from.

Arrows and letters swam before Draco's eyes. Damn it, what was wrong? It was like trying to read Ancient Runes. Draco blinked forcefully and all the symbols settled, but they didn't make any more sense than before. Somewhere between perceiving and processing, his mind was failing to absorb any meaning from the words on the page. He knew this stuff like he knew himself, he knew he did. Except if last night was anything to go by, maybe that wasn't as well as he might've thought.

He forced himself to comprehend the first question. Always the easiest, he knew absolutely that he could answer it. It was just a matter of clearing his mind and encouraging the knowledge to surface. So he did so, forcefully, and to his relief the answer came obligingly, albeit reluctantly.

As he wrote it down, he looked over at Potter for reassurance. If Draco was stymied, surely Potter was completely stumped. However, to Draco's immense chagrin, Potter was scribbling furiously across the parchment. Draco scowled and turned back to his own work. When he looked at his paper, though, his stomach turned over.

It was some sickness of the mind he'd been corrupted with, surely, that had caused his sophisticated answer to dissolve into an absent string of _..._ slurring across the answer blank in his cursive. Furious with himself, Draco violently scratched the name out and finished his original sentence, determined to score higher marks on this quiz than Potter, no matter how diligently Potter had been cramming beforehand or how furiously he was writing now.

… & …

Harry was scribbling the names of the Chudley Cannon players – first, middle, and last – furiously into the answer blanks of his parchment. When those ran out, he started filling out the quiz with fragments of Shakespeare, the Lord's prayer, and Draco Malfoy's name, over and over and over.

Wait. What? No! Strike that last bit out. Damn. Harry scribbled across the few repetitions of the blond's name until the letters were black and scarred and indecipherable.

It didn't matter that Harry would fail this quiz with flagging colors. What mattered was Malfoy not seeing how flustered his presence – his entire existence – was making Harry. And that meant writing, because Harry _was _flustered. And because he didn't know this stuff from Ancient Runes, that meant writing nonsense. It didn't matter, though, because Malfoy couldn't know the difference unless he was reading over his shoulder. Which he wasn't, because he was surely too preoccupied filling out his own quiz – and with the right answers, too, the git.

Harry looked over to glower at Malfoy at the injustice of this. His quill stalled when he saw Malfoy, instead of leisurely scripting his way to top marks, staring blankly at his parchment, not even holding his quill. What was going on? Malfoy would never wittingly allow himself to fail at Potions, not even to mess with Harry.

"Time!" Slughorn called out, then Accioed their quizzes. "You may go now, that is all for the day."

Harry packed up quickly and left before either Georgia or Ginny could catch up with him. He needed time to think, to work things out, to be alone. Oddly, Malfoy remained seated with that blank expression still in place, like he'd been Stunned or Obliviated into complete confusion, rather than sweeping out before Harry could even process the lesson's end as he usually did. Adding this to his running, and recently growing, list of 'Things Draco Malfoy Did Not Do' anomalies, Harry set off striding through the less-trafficked corridors of the castle.

To be honest, Ginny and Georgia weren't the only people he was keen to avoid. They weren't even his priorities. The person he really didn't want to see was Hermione. He'd managed to avoid any prolonged conversation with her since that first detention two days ago – mainly because when the choice came down to speaking to Harry or speaking to Ron, she always chose Ron – and he wanted to keep it that way. He wasn't any more ready to discuss the state of his affairs with Malfoy than he had been then.

And therein lay the problem. The reason he was prowling empty castle corridors, alone.

After their first detention, Harry had decided the only thing to do was to match Malfoy's sangfroid. He wasn't about to degrade himself by pursuing Malfoy when it was clear Malfoy wanted less to do with him than ever. He was starting to question whether that kiss had even really happened, or whether he'd hallucinated it. That would make more sense, anyway, and it wouldn't even be the first time he'd mistaken a delusion for reality.

But then Malfoy had come into class this morning looking so... so clean and good and oddly young, like he'd been set back four years to before he'd been marked by the scar tissue of the war. And he'd said "Hi," in that way that was so un-Malfoy-like, with wide eyes that didn't seem to know what they wanted but were hopeful all the same. Harry had felt a horrible, irrational twinge of hope at that, so he'd had to seal his mouth shut and pretend not to have heard so as not to give himself away. But then Malfoy had looked so stricken... and none of that could've been faked, Harry was sure of it. Not that Malfoy wasn't capable of a convincing act, just that he would never fake vulnerability, because that's what his behavior this morning came down to – vulnerability.

You couldn't be vulnerable if you didn't care. But why would you be distant and cold if you did? Only to turn around and crack again? And tonight, which would it be?

More importantly, what did any of it _mean ?_

Harry realized he was stomping and forced himself to stop. He was near a window. Looking out, he spotted a small person attached to bright red hair standing by the lake, so he changed course and went for the nearest staircase.

"I," he seethed as he approached Ginny, "hate Draco Malfoy."

Ginny turned as if expecting him. She was holding a roll in one hand and crumbs in the other, feeding the giant squid. "Any particular reason?" she asked mildly.

Harry picked up a rock and tossed it out over the lake. He was too worked up to aim, so it plonked heavily down into the water instead of skipping across. "Because he's a git."

"Not arguing that accusation," said Ginny, "but it might help if you elaborated a little."

Harry flopped down onto the grass. The blades were crunchy underneath him from last night's frost. "He ignored me all through detention – didn't say a bloody word! – then comes in this morning all 'hi' and I-can't-even-focus-enough-to-flaunt-my-Potions-skills."

Ginny tossed the rest of her roll into the water and sat down next to Harry. "That's odd," she said. "I mean, not the ignoring bit – that's classic Malfoy – but the coming around and the barmy bit. Definitely odd."

"Odd?" Harry echoed. "It's a nightmare!"

"Hmm," she mused. Harry could almost hear her girl-mind evaluating Malfoy's behavior from every possible angle until it came up with some far-fetched explanation that covered every base while simultaneously putting the subject in the best possible light. He was grateful, again, to have Ginny as a friend. Her girl-mind reasoning was exactly what he'd come for. His mind had been going through the same motions without any of the same results, like the basic imposition of being male prevented him from getting anywhere.

"Have you considered," she said at last, "that in detention he might still have been in shock over... whatever happened between you in the corridor, and since then he's been able to think about things, so he's acting differently now?"

"Think about things?" Harry repeated. Things like me? he wondered. Things like what happened between us? Things like why it happened? A strange but undeniably pleasurable excitement filled his belly at the thought of Malfoy thinking about him, about snogging him. "And what conclusions could he have drawn that would make him act so differently?" he asked.

"Well I don't know, do I?" said Ginny. "It depends on what happened between you in the first place."

It sure does, thought Harry. It sure does. "Well... I guess you could be right," he said out loud. "It makes some sense I suppose. I just wish I knew..." He trailed off, pinching a blade of grass between two fingertips.

"You could always ask him, you know," Ginny pointed out quietly.

"Ask him?" And most likely get punched again? "No way. You have no idea..."

"Well unless you're expecting him to make you his new confidant—"

"Not bloody likely," Harry interjected.

"—or are planning to practice Legilimency for ages until you can pick his brain for the answer, I don't see how you have any other choice."

They were quiet for a while, listening to the water lapping at the shoreline. Then, once goose bumps had begun emerging on Harry's skin from the breeze promising the oncoming of winter, Ginny stood up to go.

"He kissed me," Harry admitted quietly to her back, not looking at her, but out at the lake.

He felt her sit back down. "What?" she asked, though he was confident she had heard.

"In the hallway. Malfoy kissed me."

"Oh," she said. "Oh."

"Oh?" said Harry. "That's all you have to say? 'Oh'?"

"Give me a minute, will you? It's a lot to process."

"You're telling me," Harry muttered.

He picked at the grass while Ginny's mouth went from slightly agape to thoughtful to quirked at the corners.

"So," she said. "How was it?"

"I don't know," replied Harry truthfully. "Short, mostly."

"So he kissed you," she mused aloud, "and then you punched him? God, Harry. No wonder he was giving you the freeze. Honestly."

Harry sighed in exasperation. "Well what would you do if your arch enemy was yelling at you one minute, grabbing you and kissing you the next, and then shoving you away like _you_ were the one who assaulted _him_?" cried Harry indignantly.

"Definitely punch him in the face," said Ginny sarcastically.

"Gin..." Harry warned.

"Okay, okay, I'll be serious." Harry threw a blade of grass at her. "Look, I'm not saying you weren't right to be upset, but it sounds like Malfoy is even more confused than you are."

Harry was about to rebut this when Ginny interrupted him by speaking again. "Is Malfoy gay?" she asked suddenly.

Harry gaped at her. "I don't know!" he exclaimed. "Why would I know? He's not exactly going to confess his secrets to me, is he?"

"He's been flirting with you all term," Ginny pointed out, "and he's kissed you. Are you honestly telling me you haven't considered the possibility?"

"Well, yeah," said Harry. "Malfoy, gay? No way. He's just been playing games with me, to mess with my head."

"So I suppose kissing you was all part of his nefarious plan?"

Harry recalled how stunned Malfoy had looked when they broke apart, like he hadn't even known what he'd been doing. "Well it's probably..." he protested. "I'm sure it's just..."

Ginny's smirk was very self-satisfied.

"You're the one who said he was up to something in the first place!" he accused.

"True, but that was before I knew he kissed you. This changes things."

"How so?"

"Well I hardly think he's plotting against you anymore," she said. "In fact, I think it's far more likely that..."

"That what?" Harry prodded.

"That, well, he might fancy you," Ginny finished, only somewhat sheepishly, "and he can't deal with it, so he's lashing out at you."

Harry's mouth dropped open again. "Come on," he said, almost desperately. "That's mental."

"Why?"

"Because it's Malfoy!"

"So?"

"_So_, he can't fancy me!"

"Can't he? It certainly seems like he can. The theory's compatible with the evidence, anyway. Why do you think you two could never leave each other alone?"

"Um, because we loathe each other?"

"Maybe," she shrugged. "Maybe not."

"What are you saying, that we've secretly been in love with each other all these years?"

"No, I'm just saying that hate and love are two sides of the same coin."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you've always reacted strongly to each other, and that you don't exactly hate each other anymore."

Harry was far from convinced that Malfoy fancied him, but he did have to concede that this last statement, at least, was true. He didn't hate Malfoy anymore – not by a long shot – and Malfoy appeared to have similarly thawed when it came to Harry. Where this left them, he wasn't sure.

"So... what now?" he asked, after a moment.

"What now?" Ginny repeated. "Well, I suppose giving him a chance might be a good place to start."

Harry looked at her skeptically.

"He wasn't distant this morning, was he? That's a step in the right direction," she pointed out.

"But in what direction?" Harry mused, largely to himself. Ginny answered him anyway.

"I don't know. But don't even try to tell me you don't want to find out."

She was right, of course. He did.

… & …

Draco was early again, had already been fidgeting in his seat for five minutes when Potter arrived just barely on time. Draco never fidgeted. At least, he never used to. In comparison to other changes in his behavior of late – a certain encounter in a corridor was first to mind – it was hardly a scandal, but still.

Right now, he was fidgeting out of nerves. He had no reason to expect Potter to treat him with anything but the cool indifference of this morning, the same cool indifference Draco had been dishing out ever since that corridor scene. Yet he didn't know how he could stand to see that detached haughtiness in Potter's eyes all month long. Draco was too familiar with that haughtiness. It had always been in his father's eyes when he spoke to Draco, and it had been in Draco's whenever he spoke to his peers, starting the moment he'd stepped out of Potter's compartment that fateful day on the train, his hand still cold from where Potter hadn't touched it. It made him sick to see it in Potter's eyes now, where it had never and would never belong. Those eyes were colored for passion, whereas Draco's were carved from stone, and their properties should never be interchanged.

Potter's abrupt entrance made Draco's stomach lurch like he'd stepped into Floo flames. Potter paused in the doorway, looking around the room, presumably for the absent Professor Slughorn.

"He already left," Draco explained, wondering at how his voice didn't sound like his own. "Same directions as last time."

Potter nodded and took his seat.

Draco tried not to get carried away over the absence of the morning's detachment from Potter's countenance. If anything, he looked bewildered. But Draco wasn't going to credit that with any thought either. He was going to sort seeds. Starting now.

"This is all pretty devious of him," said Potter, startling Draco – who had yet to move – out of his thoughts. Potter was calmly sorting already. For a second, Draco wondered if he'd imagined Potter speaking purely out of wishful thinking.

"Pardon?" said Draco, then cleared his throat.

"Putting us in detention together, I mean. Leaving us alone. Forcing us to work out our... issues." Potter looked over at Draco, his eyes opaque and serious, like wet grass.

Draco swallowed. "Well, he _was_ a Slytherin," he pointed out.

A ghost of a smile drifted across Potter's lips, and it was more than Draco had seen directed at him since before he'd overreacted to Potter touching his hand in Potions. Knowing what he did now about himself, Draco wished he'd appreciated that moment more while it had lasted. It wasn't likely to repeat itself any time soon, even if they were speaking again. A few words did not a relationship make.

"So he was," Potter said.

They began working in silence. But the silence had an entirely different texture, temperature, and sound than it had the first time they'd shared it in detention. It was a patient silence rather than a brittle one.

How was it that after everything Draco had subjected him to in the last seventy-two hours, Potter could stand there so mildly and banter with Draco? He could only chalk it up to another one of Potter's unfathomable miracles. No matter the explanation, though, it made Draco bold. After several minutes, he took a chance at breaking the silence himself.

"So... what happened between you and the Weasel – er, your friend Weasley?" he asked as casually as he could, carefully separating mandrake seeds from mistletoe seeds.

"Oh, you noticed?" Potter asked.

"It's hard to miss an irate ginger," Draco covered blithely, panicking inwardly about seeming like a stalker. His observations of Potter's daily movements had become such a given to him that he'd stopped considering them as they would appear to an outsider – obsessive and creepy. "Weasleys are not known for their self-control."

"Yeah..." said Potter, "not so much." He sighed. "Ron's pretty buggered with me right now, actually."

"Why's that?" Draco hoped Potter didn't find his questions intrusive or, worse, suspicious. After all, when had Draco ever before taken a benign interest in the personal life of the Chosen One? Of course, that was because he'd never had the leisure to, but Potter couldn't know that.

Or maybe Potter sensed more of Draco's recent shifting than Draco would've guessed, because he answered. "I... well, I told him something he didn't want to hear," Potter admitted.

Something in Potter's hesitancy to articulate what exactly it was he'd said made Draco suspect it was something Draco had already heard. Or overheard, rather. Draco found himself filling with a sudden indignation on Potter's behalf.

"Well that's hardly fair!" he exclaimed. "What an intolerant little... I mean, it's hardly as if you –" Draco broke off when he recalled that, not being one of Potter's confidants, he was not supposed to be privy to this particular bit of information.

"It's hardly as if I what?" prompted Potter, looking simultaneously nonplussed, amused, and entirely too savvy.

"Just that whatever it was you told him, I'm sure it's not your fault and he shouldn't blame you for it because he's, you know, your friend."

Potter raised his eyebrows. "How very sentimental of you, Malfoy."

"Oh, bugger off," Draco muttered, turning away to hide his embarrassment, cursing himself for blathering like a half-wit. And in front of Potter, too, whose countenance was entirely too well-suited to ironic expressions for Draco's shot composure to handle.

"Aw, come off it, Malfoy," Potter said. "I was only joking."

And then a miraculous thing happened, more miraculous than Potter speaking to him like they were mates, even: Potter reached for Draco's hand and squeezed it.

It was a short squeeze, to be sure, but a squeeze nonetheless. It was the first contact either of them had initiated since the incident. Draco knew it was impossible for so small a thing to literally make his heart stop, but as far as he was concerned, that touch stopped it in its tracks. Then, of course, it came back beating all the harder to make up for the pause. Draco's lips parted and he met Potter's eyes, which were earnest and unblinking. It felt like there was something fragile suspended in the air between their joined gaze.

Then Potter turned back to his seeds.

Draco let out the breath he'd caught the moment Potter's skin had met – sought out – his. He wanted nothing more than to flee to the privacy of his room to dissect the past half hour from every possible angle – positive, negative, promising, foreboding, poignant, scandalous, shameful, impossible – but as there were two hours of seed-sorting left ahead of them, he settled to fleeing to the privacy of his mind.

Despite the fact that hardly another word was exchanged between them, they were the most tumultuous and loud two hours of Draco's week thus far.

… & …

Harry returned to Gryffindor Tower in a fog. His conversation with Ginny had prompted him to speculate about whether he might've misinterpreted the state of things between him and Malfoy, but he never anticipated just how right she would be. Who would've thought Malfoy was capable of blushing so prettily? Or that Harry would be the cause of it? A warmth that had spread through Harry at the sight of Draco's vulnerably parted lips and never left flared again at the memory. Who could've predicted he and Malfoy would ever share a silence that wasn't sharpened to a lethal point, or share space without poisoning the air between them? And yet they had. Oh, had they.

Harry stepped through the portrait hole and headed toward the staircase up to his dorm, chewing on his bottom lip absently. Then a sudden movement in the empty room, of someone standing up out of an armchair by the fire, startled him and he jumped.

"Hermione!" he exclaimed, catching his breath. "Bloody hell, you scared me."

"Sorry," she apologized.

Harry's initial fright quickly became wariness. It was most likely she'd waited up to corner him about his fight with Malfoy. He berated himself for not being more careful while coming in. He ought to have anticipated something like this, but had gotten so worked up about detention that anything else had slipped his mind.

"Er," he began, "I'm really tired and I've got to..." Then Ron stood up, looking decidedly uncomfortable but no longer hostile, and Harry's wariness turned into confusion. "Um," he finished.

"This won't take long," Hermione assured him, gesturing Ron forward. "Ron just had something he wanted to tell you."

"Oh," said Harry. "Okay." He looked at Ron.

Ron fidgeted. Hermione nudged him. "Ron..." she warned under her breath.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry I was such a wanker the other day. You know, in the locker room. It's really okay with me if you're gay. I was just surprised, is all," explained Ron in a rush.

To be honest, with all the madness of things with Malfoy monopolizing his concentration, Harry had just about forgotten he and Ron were even fighting. But he appreciated the apology nonetheless. Even though the phrasing sounded more Hermione than Ron, he didn't doubt Ron's sincerity.

"Don't worry about it," he told Ron. "I knew all along you'd come 'round. You always do."

Ron looked relieved. "Thanks, mate."

Hermione, satisfied, pulled Ron in for a quick kiss, then bid them goodnight and disappeared up the girls' staircase.

"So," said Ron awkwardly as they climbed their own staircase, "you're sure, then? I mean, it's fine with me. But are you sure?"

Harry thought about the heat the sight of Malfoy's blond hair across a room raised under his skin, the buzz in his veins when they spoke and shared space, the intensity of Malfoy kissing him and how he wanted desperately for it to happen again, properly this time. He thought about earlier tonight, the impulse to touch him and the satisfaction of doing so and not having Malfoy flinch or push him away.

"Yeah," he said. "I really am."

Ron still looked uncomfortable. "You're not, er, seeing anyone, are you?" he asked next.

Harry hesitated for a moment. Strictly speaking, he wasn't, even though he didn't exactly feel single either. He wasn't about to get into it with Ron, though. His acceptance was shaky enough as it was. Whatever was or wasn't happening with Malfoy, Ron didn't need to know until it was absolutely official and absolutely necessary. So he said simply, "No."

"Right then," said Ron, nodding. "Okay. Good."

"Good," Harry echoed.

As he slid beneath the covers and shut the drapes of his four-poster, he wasn't sure 'good' was the right word just yet. But it could be.


	13. From Thine Lips

**CHAPTER TWELVE **

**From Thy Lips**

"_To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn" - Marcel Jouhandeou_

Slughorn was droning on in the front of the room. Usually, Draco would be captivated by the professor's discussion of fate-meddling concoctions (such as the Felix Felicis he lost to Potter sixth year), but today he couldn't muster the concentration. His pulse thrummed in his hand so that he couldn't hold his quill steady. His few attempts at notes had resulted in shaky sentence fragments that would probably be incoherent to him when reviewed.

Potter had come to class rumpled with recent sleep, softening even further at the edges when Slughorn started talking, and it was sabotaging Draco's focus. Draco glanced over at his partner, then quickly back. Right now Potter's head was slumped against his hand, pushing his cheek up in an endearingly childish manner. His mouth was soft in a dreamy sort of private smile.

In Draco's eyes, the sight was – not to put too fine a point on it – beautiful.

He counted to ten slowly and recited the twelve uses of dragon's blood before he let himself look again.

… & …

Harry felt Malfoy's eyes on him and smiled to himself. To be honest, the little jolts of adrenaline that accompanied his partner's periodic glances were the only thing keeping him awake at the moment. He'd been up with nightmares again for the better part of the middle of the night, and Slughorn's lecture was doing nothing to help.

The urge to look over at Malfoy had been tugging at him all class, but he'd been trying to resist. He wanted to see how often Malfoy's glances would come if he thought Harry oblivious to them, and the result was even better than Harry could have imagined – Malfoy's head turned almost every other minute.

Unless Harry _was_ imagining it... There was a great power in wishful thinking, after all, and Harry was already drowsy – the perfect condition for daydreaming. His eyes slid toward Malfoy...

… and met Malfoy's gorgeous grey eyes, like polished granite, peering back at him. Harry's skin went warm with satisfaction. He hadn't been imagining it.

Malfoy immediately looked away, down at his parchment. But after a moment his head came back up and he met Harry's eyes again. This time neither of them looked away. They held their gaze steadily and wonderingly, without a trace of aggression.

Harry felt slightly winded. He hadn't thought a mere meeting of eyes could feel so intimate. He forgot he was in class, surrounded by his classmates (they weren't paying attention anyway, as most of them were asleep or soon to be). He wondered what Malfoy was seeing in his eyes. What he was thinking. What he was feeling. He wished he could ask.

After a minute, Malfoy blushed and bent his head toward his parchment. He didn't look up again, though Harry had every sense on overdrive in anticipation of it for the rest of the lesson.

The lingering memory of the connection made Harry warm all over. Its absence made him feel strangely lonely. He yearned for its revival.

… & …

The seeds were finally through being sorted. Tonight they were to organize the Potions cupboard.

"Sans magic," Slughorn specified sternly, before retreating to his office.

If Harry had spared any thought for it, he might've wondered why Slughorn spent so little time supervising students in detention for fighting, but his thoughts were too preoccupied with the hours of privacy allowed by the professor's neglect to wonder at it.

He kneeled down next to Malfoy on the floor of the Potions cupboard; they were starting from the bottom to work their way to the top. The room was only about four feet wide, which put them in closer proximity than they'd sustained in the last week since the corridor incident – maybe ever. They carefully kept as many inches as could fit between them clear, but even so Harry's whole consciousness was fixated on the awareness of Malfoy's body so near to his own. His skin tingled and tickled at every small draft of air moving in the space between them, at every brush of Malfoy's robes against his skin as they worked.

He cleared his throat, intending to speak to distract himself from the rising heat in the small room that was only partially in his mind.

"So I've made up with Ron," he said, then immediately regretted it. Why would Malfoy care about his relationships with his friends, for whom Malfoy had always expressed open and vocal disdain?

Malfoy turned to him, those exquisitely arched eyebrows raised. "Oh really?" he asked coolly.

Harry's gut twisted in anticipation of the cutting remark sure to follow, but then he noticed the flush in Malfoy's cheeks and relaxed some. He wasn't any more unaffected than Harry was.

"Er, yeah," he mumbled. "I think 'Mione forced him to come around."

"Smart girl," said Malfoy diplomatically.

"Yeah."

Harry pretended to be absorbed in shifting of boomslang skins to hide his embarrassment at introducing such a faux pas of a subject between them. It could have gone over worse, he supposed. At least Malfoy had been cordial about it, had refrained from whipping out the 'M' word he was so disposed to use in reference to Hermione.

"I'm, um, glad," said Malfoy a minute later.

Harry looked over in surprise.

"That Weasley came around, I mean," he explained, studying his hands. "You deserve to have your friends be understanding."

Harry felt baffled and extremely flattered. He was quite sure he'd never heard Malfoy speak so kindly before, to him or anyone else. He also doubted whether anything he'd told Malfoy had conveyed a need for understanding from Ron – though it was true – and wondered that Malfoy had drawn that conclusion.

"Thanks," he said. He racked his brain for something else to say. "And your friends," he asked, to reciprocate, "are they understanding?"

"They don't need to be," said Malfoy flatly. At Harry's furrowing of brows, he amended, "I don't ask them to be."

"Oh," said Harry.

He didn't tell Hermione and Ron everything – far from it – but to tell them nothing... how could the pressure of so many things welling up without release be borne? No wonder Malfoy often looked so strained.

"I'm sorry about Crabbe, you know," he said. "I've wanted you to know that. I wish we could've..."

Malfoy looked at him for a long moment, and Harry almost fancied he could see the embers of Fiendfyre flickering in the depths of Malfoy's eyes. "You've lost more," he said.

"Have I?" Harry asked.

He wasn't sure how many of the casualties on the other side had been mourned by Malfoy, but he did know that Malfoy's parents were conspicuously absent from his life now, and Harry didn't know why.

When Malfoy didn't respond, he went on in a soft voice, "I hardly ever saw the three of you apart back then. Do you miss him terribly?"

It was a question that crossed the boundary from polite into personal, and Harry worried he might've overstepped. Whatever there was between them, however it might be growing, it was still fragile. Still, Harry felt, a mine field.

An expression of pain flashed across Malfoy's delicate features, tightening and sharpening them. "He was a loyal friend," was all he said.

… & …

Draco felt sick – to have Potter apologizing for what had happened in the Room of Requirement, apologizing when he'd saved Draco's life, as if Draco could ever again begrudge him some fault. And then to express regret for the loss of a life he'd never value, and concern for Draco's own well-being when Potter had given and lost so much more, when he didn't know the half of what Draco had done at the Dark Lord's command... Draco deserved everything he'd gotten, and Potter didn't.

"Potter," said Draco, looking up into Potter's eyes to avoid the sight of his shaking hands, "why are you being so nice to me? It's unnerving," he said, echoing Potter's own sentiment from mere weeks ago, back when Draco had still thought this was all just a game he controlled.

"Because I want to be," said Potter, as if it were a simple thing.

Draco didn't know whether he wanted to start crying or kiss Potter at that, or maybe just cry into Potter's chest with Potter's arms tight and strong around him. Oh, how he _ached._

However, as none of these things were safe, he settled for reaching to pick up a vial of spiders' venom. His hands were still shaking, so the glass trembled between his fingers. Unbidden, Potter's hand extended out to encircle Draco's and steady his grip. Potter's skin was arm and ever-so-slightly rough and made Draco want to drop the vial and interlace his fingers with Potter's.

That wouldn't do either, so Draco did nothing. Their hands hovered in the air in front of them for the space of a breath – in, out – and then Potter extracted the vial from Draco's fingers and set it where it belonged.

Taking a deep breath, Draco willed his pulse to steady and his hands to still, then got back to work, doing his best to pretend Potter was someone else, just another daft fellow student to be tolerated. He knew from the start it was a doomed endeavor, but trying gave him something else to focus on aside from how eagerly his anatomy throbbed in the presence of Potter's.

… & …

Afterward, back in his room, Draco was restless. He tried to work on his remaining assignments, but couldn't get his thoughts to focus. Closing his Arithmancy book sharply in agitation, he spotted the small leather-bound copy of Romeo and Juliet laying open on the small table by the fireplace.

There was only a scene or two left to finish. He thought this might better hold his attention; he found their tale of love poignant, though he felt their affection to be somewhat more superficial than he dreamt of for himself, and the Bard's words exquisite. They had a way of lodging in his mind – or his heart, or somewhere in between, he wasn't sure – and rising to fit almost any situation which in some way stirred him.

"_Palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss..."_

He pushed memory aside and focused on the words.

When Romeo hassled the apothecary, begging for the "_dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear, As will disperse itself through all the veins, That the life-weary-taker may fall dead,_" Draco's stomach spun with unease. He understood now Potter's muttering during the lecture on Nocturna Mortem. He couldn't help his eyes from settling upon that very vial now on his dresser, shining mutedly in the flickering light of the fireplace, so like Romero's own draft.

"_Life-weary-taker"_ – that was apt. Yet Romeo pursued death to be joined in death. Draco would to isolate himself from life – to make room for life, for his own life rendered no good for others or even himself (Malfoy's were nothing if not pragmatically selfish). He was a sort of black hole of an existence, luring in and extinguishing all nearby light. A void of regrets and guilt that cast a pallor on any society he entered. He had nothing further to expect from life, no right to expect or accept anything offered to him, if it even were. Why he had even bothered coming back to Hogwarts, he could only explain to his benefit as being to tie up loose ends and find closure, but the truth of it was that he was above all else a coward and was merely formulating excuses not to let go so soon, reasons to postpone the inevitable end.

He pressed on through the last scene and closed the book with wet cheeks. At least Romeo had had love to fight for, love to live and die for. Draco hadn't that same sweet comfort and inspiration; his only responsibility to love was to spare it his black stain.

… & …

It was one of those moments in life when things seem to rise and connect out of pure serendipity that the evening after Draco finished reading Romeo and Juliet was the evening Potter chanced to bring it up.

"I was wondering," he said, as if it had just occurred to him, "whether you ever finished reading that book I saw you checking out a couple of weeks ago."

They were back in the cupboard, standing now to sort the middle shelves.

"Which one?" asked Draco, frivolously seeking the pleasure of knowing Potter remembered their meetings in as great detail as Draco did, and at the same time attempting to act as if he either read so many books or encountered so many heroes that it was hard to distinguish any one incident, thereby making Draco appear both more scholarly and more sought after than he truly was.

"Romeo and Juliet," Potter specified.

"Oh, yes. I finished it."

"And?" Potter pressed, his eyes wide and eager and expectant in the dim cupboard. "What did you think?"

Draco considered this for a moment. "Honestly, I'm not sure. The language was exquisite and unfailingly romantic, naturally, but I can't help but think they behaved foolishly and impractically – surely any two people with more sense would have seen that a relationship between a couple such as them was impossible."

"You begrudge them their attraction?" Potter asked, his brows tightening along with the corners of his mouth.

"Not their attraction – their actions."

"Doesn't everyone behave foolishly in love?"

"Only if they are foolish themselves."

"What would you have them do, then, O-Practical-One?" sniped Potter.

"I don't know – repress it or ignore it, I suppose," Draco supplied.

"And live miserably for the rest of their lives?"

"It would hardly be the rest of their lives," Draco scoffed. "It was a passing infatuation – or it would have been if they'd allowed it to pass. Juliet was thirteen!"

"And no one can be sure of their heart at such an age?"

"Can one ever be sure of one's heart?" Draco asked quietly, feeling his own heart clogging his throat and sewn into the hem of his sleeve. He wondered if Potter realized he wasn't really talking about Romeo or Juliet anymore.

… & …

Harry watched Malfoy speak in a frustrated rapture. Watching the movement of Malfoy's mouth, the curves of his effeminate pink lips as they shaped his words, was a sight of singular beauty that could easily distract Harry out of listening if he wasn't very careful. Yet the words Malfoy's lovely lips were forming were so contrary to Harry's own hopeless romantic beliefs, so wholly disheartening if they were true, that it was sort of anguish to listen. Did Malfoy truly think that way? Or was it just a front to ward Harry off, or even a mechanism for Malfoy himself to keep far-fetched desires at bay? He couldn't know that they weren't so far-fetched at all in reality... It was so hard these days for Harry to draw the line between wishful thinking and what was really there between them. He did know, though, that this exchange was one of the most natural and forthcoming they'd ever sustained on good terms, and he didn't want it to end.

"Surely it would be better to follow your heart, risks be damned, than to be repressing it always," he argued.

"Not always, perhaps," Malfoy countered. "Just until the situation became both desirable and sensible."

"You sound like Jane Austen!" Harry exclaimed in exasperation.

"Who?" Malfoy's eyebrows went uneven in confusion.

"Muggle author – never mind. The point is, love isn't a formula or a balancing of scales! What role can sense have in it?" Harry wasn't quite sure why exactly he was getting so worked up over this; he just knew that for some reason it seemed imperative to get through to Malfoy.

"It has everything to do with it! How could they pursue their feelings knowing full well that everything they stood for and belonged to and owed their loyalty to went completely at odds to one another?" Malfoy's voice had a strained edge of pleading to it that prodded plaintively at Harry's heart, and he began to wonder if and when they had stopped talking about Romeo and Juliet.

"It's always about loyalty with you!" Harry cried. Then he thought carefully for a moment before continuing. "A person's past isn't all they are. It doesn't define their future. What if there are more important things than names and alliances? More powerful things?"

"Oh, don't tell me you're one of those 'love conquers all' people," said Malfoy. His voice broke mid-way through the sentence, betraying his attempt at blasé.

"Yes, I am," said Harry, quietly. He locked his eyes with Malfoy's. "I'm living proof that it's true."

Malfoy's lips parted wordlessly and Harry thought he'd had the last word until Malfoy said softly, "I think it's possible that some people can't be saved, even by – as you say – the most powerful brand of magic. After all, Romeo and Juliet died."

"Together," Harry said, and _that _was the last word.

They didn't speak again that night, not even to bid goodnight as they had taken to doing. It was as if they were spent, had used up all their words. Or perhaps that the words they'd used were so big there wasn't room for any more.

… & …

Georgia caught up with Harry as he left Potions a couple days later. He'd spent the whole lesson pretending to listen to Malfoy's mini-lectures on the subtleties of potion brewing while wondering what it would be like to kiss Malfoy – really kiss him, that is. He imagined that Malfoy's lips would be perfectly smooth and soft and supple, equally able to kiss him more gently and roughly than any one else.

He was therefore not in the mood to shoot the breeze with Georgia McDonnell. He was in the mood to sneak into the Prefect's bathroom and encourage the advances of this dream Malfoy his mind had so obligingly conjured.

"Harry," said Georgia breathlessly as she fell into step with him. "How are you? I feel like we haven't spoken in _ages!_"

"M'alright," Harry muttered. Then, to be polite, he asked, "You?"

"Oh, just completely buggered," she exclaimed. "I have this horrible Divinations exam next week. We have to predict the future in crystal – that is, crystal balls. Accurately, of course! Top marks only if it comes true. I don't know _what_ I'm going to do."

"Oh, er, wow," said Harry by way of sympathy. "Sounds stressful."

Sounds bollocks, he muttered in his thoughts.

"Oh, it is," she assured him. "You have no idea. Well, anyway, sorry to be going so soon when we've only just begun to catch up, but I've got to be off – to the library, you know."

"But of course," Harry said seriously, nodding. "Study hard."

"Will I ever!" Georgia vowed. "Bye then, Harry!"

Harry made his way to the Great Hall for lunch and found Ron, Hermione, and Ginny already there. He sat down next to Ginny, kissing her cheek, then turned to face Ron and Hermione.

"Hullo," he greeted them.

"All right, Harry?" queried Ron.

"I've only just escaped Georgia," he said. "I need some pumpkin juice, fast."

Ron passed him a goblet. As Harry drank deeply from it, Ginny leaned into his ear.

"Learn lots in Potions today?" she whispered. "Like how many creases a certain blonde has in his lower lip?"

She pulled away and grinned wickedly. Harry blushed furiously.

Hermione appraised them keenly. "I will never understand you two," she said.

"Won't stop you from trying, anyhow," said Ginny around a mouthful of biscuit.

Ron looked at Harry sheepishly.

"What'sa matter, Ron?" Harry asked.

"I'm sorry I ever suggested you date Georgia," he said. "I didn't realize how not your type she is, even for a girl."

Harry laughed. "No worries, mate," he told Ron.

"You know," said Hermione, looking thoughtful, "that sixth year on your team – the really sweet, pretty one?"

"Charlie?" Harry supplied. "The Chaser?"

"That's the one. I've heard loads of girls complaining about how he won't flirt with them."

"Oh?" said Harry noncommittally, not seeing what this had to do with him, or with anything. It wasn't like Hermione to talk idly of gossip.

"He seems to like you," she stated.

"So?" Harry said, then, "Oh..." as comprehension sunk in.

"Hermione..." Ron groaned.

"What?" she said defensively. "He's really nice, and cute, too. Don't you want Harry to be happy?"

"Well sure I do. But I think he can pick out his own blokes well enough without your help."

Harry shot Ron a grateful look, and as Hermione opened her mouth to take offense at Ron's comment, he broke in. "Look, Hermione," he said. "I appreciate you looking out for me, but Charlie's really not my type, and I'd rather sort this out for myself if it's all the same to you."

"I don't know if you can," she protested. "You're so picky! What is your type, exactly?"

"Oh, er, I dunno... fit, I s'pose. And... clever?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well that narrows it down. Come on, surely there's someone you fancy right now? Anyone at all?"

Ginny nudged Harry in the ribs and smirked and Harry blushed again.

"Er, not really... Well, sort of..."

"Really?" pressed Hermione, piqued. She leaned forward, eyebrows raised. "Who?"

"I thought you weren't seeing anyone," said Ron, sounding affronted.

"I'm not," Harry hastened to assure him. "It's just a crush, silly really... In fact I'd really rather not say just now, if you don't mind..."

Hermione regarded him skeptically. "You'll tell us if something happens, though, won't you?" she cajoled.

"Of course!" Harry vowed enthusiastically, but he wasn't so sure.

Being gay was one thing; fancying – or even dating, if it ever came to that – Draco Malfoy was another entirely. He wasn't sure if his friends – even supportive Hermione – could handle it. He was sure they would never understand it, in any case. He couldn't even understand it himself, so how could he expect them to? Yet for whatever reason, he had the strangest and strongest feeling that it was only a matter of time and timing between he and Malfoy.

"So," said Ginny conspiratorially as they got up and left the Hall together a few minutes later, "how many creases _does_ Malfoy have in his lower lip?"

"I don't know," Harry lied. "Honestly, Ginny, I do have other things on my mind than snogging Malfoy senseless." He rolled his eyes.

Ginny only smirked. "Oh really?" the curl of her lips seemed to say.

The answer was this: five deeper ones in the middle and countless smaller ones on either side, all the way up to the corners of his mouth, where the crease deepened every time he frowned, smirked, or – as he was starting to do occasionally around Harry – smiled.

… & …

Tonight they were to brew a drought of Aging Potion for Slughorn to use in class with his third years. He left them a parchment with the instructions on it, then promptly left, with his usual admonishment about knowing whether or not they were working even if he wasn't in the room. Harry was beginning to doubt whether that was true, and was sure Malfoy did as well, yet they both continued to put in the hours without complaint.

"Potter," said Malfoy, without looking up from the cauldron, "can you go fetch some wormwood from the cupboard?"

Harry, who loved watching Malfoy at work brewing potions, tore himself from the sight of Malfoy's agile features compressed most becomingly in concentration, and headed for the cupboard.

He looked around for the wormwood and found it situated on the highest shelf, just beyond his reach.

"Malfoy?" he called out. "I can't reach it!"

He heard the sound of a utensil being set down on the desk and of footsteps approaching the cupboard. Then Malfoy was right behind him, reaching up over his head to grasp the wormwood, the sleeve of his robe sliding down to expose a pale, defined forearm.

Harry turned slowly in place and found himself standing chest to chest with Malfoy, who didn't move away to make room. Malfoy's arm was still above Harry's head, braced against the shelf. The pale glow of his skin in the dim light of the cupboard was thoroughly stunning – the proximity even more so – and Harry caught his breath. Malfoy's face was just several inches above Harry's, eyes staring down into Harry's with the tangible potency of a caress, and warm breath wafting across Harry's face with each exhalation. Neither of them moved – though it was all Harry could do not to wind his arms around Malfoy's taut waist and tug him forward until he could feel every line of Malfoy's body tucked against his – and suddenly Harry was filled with the heady idea that they were about to kiss. His lips parted... Malfoy's lips parted...

Then Malfoy said, "You could've just used Accio, you know," and dropped his arm and stepped away.

"Oh, right. I, er, forgot," said Harry lamely, neglecting to point out to Malfoy that he could just as easily have told Harry to do so rather than coming in to do it himself – also without magic.

"You forgot you can do magic?" Malfoy asked, raising one eyebrow sardonically.

"It happens," Harry muttered.

He made to leave the cupboard, but as he was pushing past Malfoy the other boy stopped him.

"Potter," he said.

"Yeah?" replied Harry, his heart beating heavily in his chest.

"There's something I've wanted to tell you."

Harry's palms began to sweat. "Okay," he said.

Malfoy swallowed, like maybe he was trying to swallow whatever he was about to say. But it came up anyway. "That day in the library, I was over getting my book from the shelf, and – and I overheard you talking to Ginny." He flushed. "I'm sorry."

It took a second for Harry to remember what he and Ginny had been talking about that day, and then when he did, the magnitude of it was so that the fact that Malfoy had just apologized to him for the first time in his life was lost on him. His pounding heart took on a whole new rhythm as frustrated arousal turned into anger.

"What?" he said loudly. "You _know?"_

Malfoy's cheeks were flushed too, but if Harry were looking rationally he would've seen that Malfoy didn't look so much angered or upset as scared. However, nothing about Harry was rational just now. The anxiety of his ever-increasing attraction to Malfoy needed an outlet, and since a sexual encounter was evidently non-forthcoming, an eruption of temper would have to do in its place.

"You sneaky, slimy little lowlife Slytherin!" Harry exclaimed. "What gives you the right to listen in on people's personal conversations?"

Malfoy's mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. It was just as well. Harry was in no mood to listen to reason.

"You _knew?_ You knew all along and you never told me? I can't believe you! Why are you telling me now, anyway? Planning to spread it around the school? Or maybe you're thinking bigger – selling it to Rita Skeeter? Even she's probably not too keen on you anymore, but for money and a scoop I imagine she'll talk to anyone."

"No," Malfoy said loudly, a trace of his former chilly acerbity creeping into his voice. "I'm not going to tell any one."

"Why not?" challenged Harry. "Why should I believe you?"

"Because I only do things that benefit me – you ought to know that by now – and trust me, telling the world you're gay would not in any way do me any favors."

Harry was in no state to contemplate what Malfoy was trying to imply, but the boy's levity had thrown a wrench of doubt and confusion into his tantrum. He wasn't sure what Malfoy was getting at, or, really, why he was even so mad in the first place. Hadn't he been operating as if there were a tacit understanding of this very issue between them? Did it matter so very much how Malfoy had found out?

No, but it mattered that Malfoy had heard it from Harry's own lips, while Malfoy had yet to admit a thing.

"I have to go," said Harry.

Then he pushed Malfoy aside and ran from the room, not caring that he was leaving Malfoy to finish the potion alone, and even less whether or not Slughorn caught him bailing his detention early.

Strangely, it didn't cross his mind that Malfoy might hand him in. And he didn't.

… & …

"God, Harry. No wonder you're still single," said Ginny after he finished relaying the events of the previous night's detention. "He wasn't trying to threaten you; he was trying to broach the subject of whatever almost happened between you. And you had to go be a hot-headed prat, as usual..." she huffed exasperatedly.

Harry had actually suspected this much himself once he'd calmed down enough to think it through. He'd just wanted to hear Ginny say it because her agreeing made it more real, somehow.

"Oh," said Harry.

"Harry," Ginny sighed, "this is getting ridiculous. You need to just talk to him about this already." Harry shot her a look of panic. "Or don't talk to him – whatever you prefer." She smirked; Harry stuck out his tongue. "Either way, just _do_ something already. I'm sick of you being so strung out on sexual tension all the time."

"You're sick of it?" said Harry. "Think about how _I_ feel!"

"Exactly," she said. "So get a move on."

… & …

Malfoy looked up from a textbook he was reading when Harry walked in to detention that evening, then back down, without a word.

"Hey," said Harry as he sat down.

"Hi," replied Malfoy robotically.

Harry fidgeted with a fraying hem on his sleeve.

"I'm..." he began. This was just as hard as he thought it would be. "I'm sorry I overreacted yesterday."

He didn't know how Malfoy would react to his apology, and braced himself for the worst.

For a minute, Malfoy continued to stare at the open book in front of him. Then he spoke. "It's understandable."

"It is?" Harry questioned, surprised.

"Why should you expect any better of me?" Malfoy asked. "Both the things you accused me of are things I've done before."

"But not any more," said Harry, partly a statement but mostly a question.

"No" Malfoy agreed. "Not anymore."

"Um, so what's our assignment tonight?" asked Harry, not-so-subtly changing the subject.

Malfoy shrugged. "Nothing. I don't know. He hasn't shown up."

"Really?" said Harry. "That's odd."

Malfoy nodded and stared rather absently at the same page he'd been ostensibly reading ever since Harry had arrived. "You know," he said, in a voice Harry hadn't heard him use before, but which sounded familiar nonetheless for some reason Harry couldn't quite name, "if my father were here, he'd probably tell me I was going soft for not using this against you."

Harry identified the familiarity in Malfoy's voice – it was the same tone Ron or Hermione or Ginny used when they were discussing something private, something between close friends. That Malfoy was speaking thus now, and to Harry...

There were so many things Harry could think of to say in response to Malfoy's statement, the most pressing, perhaps, being: So why aren't you? Instead, he brought up something he'd been wondering about for a while now.

"Why isn't he?" he asked quietly. "Here, I mean. What happened to him?"

Malfoy looked at Harry, his eyes flat and his expression bleak. "You really want to know?" he asked.

Harry hesitated, then nodded.

Malfoy waited for a moment, seeming to gather himself. "My parents survived the battle," he said. "You know that much. They went back to the Manor afterwards. I went... away. I couldn't go back, not yet. Too many memories."

He looked at Harry as if for approval that this vagueness was acceptable. It was; Harry had many such memories himself and understood. He didn't plan to set foot in Grimmauld Place any time soon.

He inclined his head and Malfoy continued.

"We all thought that with the Dark Lord gone and his followers dispersed, our time being meddled with and manipulated by his influence was over. We were fools. It wasn't. Another Death Eater – I don't know which one; if I did, I'd have gone after them, believe me – went around the bend. He decided that if the Dark Lord had died, his Death Eaters had a duty to do so as well, so he set out to fulfill that duty for us. He showed up at the Manor..." Malfoy broke off. But Harry didn't need him to finish.

Harry felt like he was choking. He could too clearly picture the green light, Malfoy coming home to find his parents sprawled lifeless and abandoned on some floor – the parlor, perhaps. Or maybe they hadn't even made it that far – the entrance hall.

"That's awful," he croaked.

He wanted to reach over and touch Malfoy, to offer reassurance, but Malfoy looked so stiff that he didn't quite dare.

They shared silence for a long while; Harry listened to the clock tick and his heart beat, thinking about something else he'd wondered about since the start of term.

"Malfoy," he said quietly, not wanting to disturb the other boy if he didn't care to be disturbed. "Can I ask you something else?"

It was Malfoy's turn to hesitate, then nod.

"Why'd you cut your hair?"

Malfoy bit his lip in a very un-Malfoy-like manner. "It's a bit complicated."

"I can take complicated," Harry assured him.

"Okay." Malfoy let out a gust of air. "I guess I cut it because long Malfoy locks aren't who I am anymore. They belonged to my father and to the Dark Lord and to a persona that, admittedly, I used to cultivate proudly. But that time – that me – is over. Maybe it died with my parents. Maybe it died before that – in the war. I don't know. I just know that I wanted to have some kind of... physical representation of who I'd become. Catharsis, I guess you could call it."

There was a pause in which Harry absorbed this. He almost wondered if Malfoy had been slipped Veritaserum at dinner, so honest and forthcoming was he tonight. Maybe he just felt bad about eavesdropping, or grateful for Harry's apology. Maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe it didn't really matter.

"Well I like it," said Harry, truthfully. He'd always found Malfoy's ponytail to be a bit showy and absurd. Besides, the new short cut highlighted the dramatic structure of Malfoy's high cheekbones, and the rakishness of it was undeniably sexy. "It suits you."

A timid, beatific smile slid across Malfoy's lips, and Harry was seized with a sharp desire to do something to show Malfoy what his honesty meant to Harry. Reciprocate, maybe, or confess his feelings, or just simply lean over and kiss him. He wasn't sure.

But then the classroom door banged open and Slughorn wobbled in.

"Sorry I'm late, boys! Got held up in the third floor corridor. Peeves was trying to incite the portrait hall to mutiny..."

Harry and Malfoy glanced at each other and tried not to laugh.

"Not to worry, though. I sorted him out." Slughorn glanced about himself, looking a bit flustered.

"What shall we do tonight, sir?" inquired Malfoy.

"Do? Oh. Well, so much time has been wasted there's hardly much left to do anything useful now, is there? Why don't you just go for tonight."

… & …

Draco gasped when Potter walked into Potions the next morning.

Not because he was on time (which he was), but because Potter's head was shorn. Sometime between detention last night and class this morning, he had taken wand to hair and cut it all off, every last unruly, beautiful strand. No longer did it tumble across his forehead, sway sexily into his eyes, tickle his earlobes, or flirt with his collar. No longer did it gleam in the light like bottled Nocturna Mortem. All that was left was a sort of soft-looking black fuzz.

Potter approached their shared desk amidst a crescendoing roar of whispers, but he was paying them no mind. Instead, he was grinning at Draco sheepishly, shyly, excitedly, expectantly. He sat down and Draco was still staring.

"Harry... Potter..." breathed Draco. "What have you done?"

His hand reached out tentatively of its own accord toward Potter's hair. He hesitated, hovering an inch from Potter's scalp, before closing the distance and making contact.

The fuzz was soft and ticklish, just as Draco had suspected, and it was with great force of will and regret that he pulled back again after stroking it lightly instead of rubbing his hand across it until his skin was raw. His hand fell down between them and bumped into Potter's, and then somehow, without missing a beat and so naturally Draco didn't immediately notice, their pinkies curled together, linking them under the table.

"I cut it," said Potter simply, his mouth still quirked upwards at the corners.

"But... why?" Draco asked, though his pounding heart was trying to tell him he already knew.

Potter looked at his lap bashfully. "You said, last night, that you cut yours to cut away a bit of the cancer of the war's influence on you, right?"

Draco nodded dumbly.

"Well, I have my fair share of cancer, too," said Potter.

Was it possible for a person's heart to implode from sheer power of emotion? Draco wondered. He ached with the intensity with which Potter's gesture touched him.

"You didn't have to do that," he said through a tight throat.

Oh, sweet hell, how he wanted to touch Potter back. To brush his fingertips across the skin of Potter's face, to trace his lips and the exposed lightning shaped scar on his forehead. To freeze time and just sit and marvel.

"I know," said Potter in a private, low voice meant just for Draco, "but I wanted to." Then Potter's eyes glinted. "Do you like it?" he asked, shy and flirtatious. "You always teased me about how messy it was before."

Like it? What trifling, every day words to describe something such as this. Draco was sure that nothing like this had ever been done for his sake before in his life.

"True, I did," said Draco. "But now I find I may actually miss it. It's grown on me," he admitted shyly.

"Yeah?" asked Potter, pleased.

"Yeah," said Draco.

"Well no worries. I'm sure it'll all be back by tomorrow. It has a tendency not to take well to trimming." Potter grinned mischievously.

"Hence the mess," said Draco, biting his lip and smiling at once.

"Hence the mess," Potter agreed, his face bright.

The class was in a frenzy when Slughorn arrived, late again. It was hard to say what was causing more of a stir: Harry Potter's shorn locks, that they matched Draco Malfoy's, or that same Draco Malfoy ruffling that same Harry Potter's hair in a way that seemed – for lack of a better explanation – _fond. _

And they didn't even know about the hidden pinky embrace.

"Quiet! Quiet!" Slughorn commanded. The his eyes fell on Potter and blinked at him for all of a minute.

"Nice hair, Mr. Potter," he said.

"Thanks," said Potter, before turning to smile conspiratorially at Draco.

For his part, Draco wanted to laugh out loud, out of sheer irrepressible exhilaration.

… & …

Draco was fidgeting in his seat again as detention began that night. This time out of impatience for Slughorn to leave them alone. Something that had changed between he and Potter last night had been solidified this morning, and Draco was yearning unabashedly to learn what that shift would mean for them once they were left alone. But he wouldn't find out until Slughorn _bloody_ _left already._

Slughorn was bent over some papers at his desk, finishing a bit of grading. Three minutes ticked audibly by, then five, then ten. Finally, Slughorn set down his quill and began to stand up with a shuffling of papers and a wriggling of girth.

"Polish all the glass in the cupboard," he instructed them as he went out the door.

Draco and Potter exchanged a look and went for the cupboard. Draco paused just inside and leaned against the doorframe, in no way ready yet to get to work. Potter, who was trailing him, couldn't pass through the doorway without brushing against Draco. Which he did, but then refrained from passing all the way through. He fixed himself in front of Draco and leveled him with a brilliant green gaze that curdled Draco's insides into a heady anxiety of anticipation and made his skin tingle.

"You were right," Draco said quietly, reaching up to finger the curling tendrils of hair at the nape of Potter's neck, "it grew back already."

He hardly knew what he expected to happen next, but expectations became immediately irrelevant.

What happened next was Potter wrapping his arms around Draco's neck and tugging him forward until the six-inch gap upwards and sideways between them was closed, and then kissing him.

Potter's lips were soft and careful, like a whisper. They first just pressed to Draco's and lingered there, unmoving and light. Then he pulled back so there was the barest space between their mouths and waited, the space posing the unspoken question: "Was that okay?"

This was the moment to push Potter away. But Draco couldn't move, didn't even have feeling in his limbs, much less the ability to push someone away. Especially someone as gloriously comfortable and arousing all at once as Potter.

Draco couldn't think about it; his body thought for him, leaning into Potter and pressing their lips together: "Yes."

He hadn't known kissing was like this. It was nothing like Pansy's sloppy, pushy advance. It wasn't even like Draco's own desperate and rough accost of Potter two weeks ago in the corridor. It was gentle and urgent. It was scared and bold. It was forgetting to breathe and hot breaths across skin. It was safe, and the most dangerous thing in the world. It was relief, and agony for want of more.

Potter was lapping at Draco's lips, pressing fast, repeated kisses on his mouth that were making Draco dizzy. He gripped the doorframe behind him.

He sighed into Potter's mouth, which caused Potter to take advantage of Draco's parted lips to slip his tongue through them. Draco's fingers alternately tightened and relaxed in Potter's hair as Potter's lips met his again and again and again. He relaxed into the soft wetness of Potter's mouth and lips and tongue, and into the firm warmth of Potter's arms encircling his body, holding him close. He could do this forever and be oh, so content, he decided, licking and sucking and sliding his mouth against, with, and within Potter's.

Potter broke their mouths apart and began pressing soft kisses on Draco's cheeks that made him well with sweetness so poignant it was almost sad, the wetness from Potter's lips drying on Draco's face like tears. Then Draco had to have the heavenly pleasure of Potter's mouth on his again, so he caught Potter's lips in a long closemouthed kiss.

Too soon Potter pulled their mouths apart again.

"Po–" Draco gasped as Potter pressed his lips to the underside of Draco's neck, opening his mouth and pressing his tongue to the hot skin. "Potter..." he moaned, tipping his head backwards against the doorframe and exposing his throat. Potter cupped the nape of Draco's neck and one side of his face in his hands and proceeded to kiss all the salty beginnings of sweat from Draco's skin as Draco clutched at Potter's robes and puffed warm pants of breath into Potter's hair.

And then Potter's lips were back on his and Draco was gently sucking on Potter's lower lip and _oh..._

Oh, this was delicious.

"_Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged..."_ supplied the Bard, on cue. But instead of enhancing the moment, the words reverberated around Draco's mind with the dissonance of clashed symbols.

What was he doing? He was infecting Potter with his poison, feeding Potter more and more of his darkness with every kiss. That was why he felt so light now.

Draco's tremblings of desire became tremblings of panic.

No, he couldn't be the one to corrupt the one good thing left in his life. How could he have forgotten his promise to yearn but not hope? To look but not touch? He could only ruin Potter, never bring him happiness. Could never be for Potter what Potter could be for him.

With a gasp like the precursor to a sob, Draco pushed Potter away for the second time, and it tore at his heart even more sharply than it had the first.

"I – I can't do this," he choked out, looking at a chipped stone on the floor to avoid seeing whatever was in Potter's expression right now. Whatever it was, good or bad, it could only hurt. Potter reached for Draco's arm and Draco's throat clenched like it was trying to strangle itself.

Then he turned and ran.


	14. Hardhearted

**THIRTEEN **

**Hardhearted**

"_That's life for you. … Always someone loving some thing more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can hurt you no more." - Ray Bradbury_

Harry rolled over in bed and yanked his sheets up to his chin, balling them so they fit more comfortably beneath his head.

For once, it wasn't nightmares keeping him up. No, it was a different sort of vision altogether. A vision as pale and bright and penetrating as the the rays of moonlight angling in through the window by Harry's bed, the magical midnight light slanting across his face and spotlighting the sole occupant of his mind's stage: Draco _be-still-my-heart_ Malfoy.

Harry closed his eyes and the white light of the moon crystallized behind his lids to form the image of Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy as he had looked in the breathtaking moment between when Harry had first kissed him and when he'd kissed Harry back: his lips pink and parted, the tarnished silver eyes ever-so-slightly widened, his ivory cheeks – smooth as the midnight moon seen from earth – flushed, sharpening his eyes and making him look excited and alive in a way that made Harry's fingers and toes tingle. The more enthusiastic tufts if his hair – a slightly more golden hue than his skin – were already mussed, though Harry had yet to lay a hand on it, and the combination gave Malfoy's looks a decidedly capricious and impish edge. The effect they had on Harry was magnetic and intoxicating and provocative, and if Malfoy hadn't leaned forward right then, Harry felt sure he would have thrown himself on Malfoy like the desperate, horny, smitten gay teenager he was. Even now, hours later, Harry's pulse quickened at the sight, evocative even captured in memory, and he ached to feel Malfoy's body against his once more...

But before Harry could get carried away, the image of kissable Malfoy was usurped by the image of just-kissed Malfoy – the one who pushed Harry away looking sick to his stomach and frantic with panic. That image, in turn, set Harry's stomach twisting unpleasantly and he violently tossed over to his other side, knowing even as he did so that the effort was futile.

It had been thus all night.

Malfoy's abrupt departure, after what they'd been eagerly engaged in doing just seconds before, had taken Harry's snogging hazed mind and sent it reeling in the opposite direction in such a mad, disorienting fashion that he'd sunk to the floor and put his head between his knees. It had taken long minutes of slow, purposeful breathing to calm down enough to even lift his head again, and then the sight of the empty half of the doorway where he'd had Malfoy pinned just moments before triggered a vivid sensory memory that had sent Harry's world spinning again and he'd had to start all over.

Somehow, he'd eventually gotten to his feet.

Somehow, he'd worked aggressively enough to produce evidence for the progress of two rather than one.

Somehow, he'd made it back to Gryffindor and into his bed.

He wasn't sure how; he didn't remember much of it.

Somehow, he hadn't fallen to pieces.

That is, until he'd closed his eyes and the two contrasting specters of Malfoy had risen behind his closed lids and refused to leave.

To be honest, it was the second specter he was having the problem with. The harrowed, horrified Malfoy of color-drained countenance who'd shoved him away and run and never once looked him in the eye.

The thing was, though he and Ginny had actually shared several rather enjoyable snogs (under he circumstances; it became clear later why their sessions never quite fully consumed either of them), Harry had never kissed or been kissed like that in his life (Cho didn't even bear comparison). Those minutes with Malfoy had taken his breath – and all coherent thought and muscle control – away. It had shown him with intoxicating thoroughness what was meant when it was said that snogging set you on fire. He had been burning, and Malfoy had been the source both dousing and stoking the flame.

He had thought that Malfoy had liked it. From the sighs and the soft desperation of the want that Harry had tasted on Malfoy's mouth, from the way Malfoy had been pulling Harry into his body as hard as Harry had been pushing, Harry had thought Malfoy had wanted every bit of it as much as Harry did.

But that conviction had shattered the moment Harry had felt his back hit the other side of the doorframe and dank dungeon air brush across his skin where Malfoy should have been, when his eyes had cleared and he'd seen the look of horror on Malfoy's features, the angle of Malfoy's face aimed down and away.

In bed, Harry's stomach turned. Nausea had set in sometime during the frantic hour he'd spent alone in the Potions cupboard and had yet to be dispelled. Had that kiss – that eyelid fluttering, pulse quickening, skin simmering, finger grappling kiss which had seemed so eagerly consensual – had that disgusted Malfoy? Had Harry somehow become so overwhelmed with desire that he'd forced himself on Malfoy and deluded himself that Malfoy wanted it too?

The most logical, obvious answer was yes, because in a logical world Malfoy would never consent to, much less enjoy, snogging Harry Potter. But from the moment Hagrid had broken down the door of Uncle Vernon's shack on the rock, Harry had never felt this to be the most logical of worlds.

Besides – there was the panic. The panic that had caused the granite stones of Malfoy's eyes to shatter into a cascading avalanche of gravel. Panic was something altogether different from disgust.

Panic, Harry could fix.

He turned over and thrashed, feeling both hot and cold, trapped and exposed, comfort nowhere.

"Gah," he groaned in annoyance, and sat up suddenly in agitated frustration. He couldn't just lie there, tossing and turning and doing nothing.

An idea struck him. He slid out of bed and made his way quietly to his trunk, extracting a single worn piece of blank parchment, then situated himself cross-legged back on top of his tangled sheets. He pressed the tip of his wand to the parchment and whispered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The parchment came to life in a twisting mess of black ink that arranged itself into rooms and corridors and, most importantly – names.

As he had done thousands of times since the map came into his possession, Harry sought out Draco Malfoy's name. It took him several minutes as there were hundreds of names on the map, seven floors to sift through, and Malfoy was not where he ought to be, but eventually Harry stabbed his finger at a dot pacing the Astronomy Tower and murmured, "There."

His heart began to pound and his extended finger shook slightly as his body realized what he was about to do before his mind had time to catch up.

He didn't pause to think. He leapt out of bed, haphazardly slipping his feet into his slippers and hopping clumsily in his haste, and dashed for the Portrait Hole.

Harry had never considered himself a particularly brave person. Yes, he had escaped life-threatening situations. Yes, he had often run headfirst into said situations. But it was always out of a sense of obligation or even, if you thought about it as he did, cowardice – fear of losing what he had wished all his childhood to possess, and more. He thought the word courage sounded far too noble to be applied to him, much less synonymous as so many of his fans had made it. Hermione had said courage was doing what was right in spite of fear. Maybe that was true, but Harry thought that if he had any courage at all, his brand would be better defined as doing what was right simply _because_ of fear. Most times, he hadn't even had time to contemplate acting or not acting. Adrenaline had kicked in and there were only two choices: act or lose. And again, Harry felt that this decision – the decision to act – was merely another manifestation of his innate cowardice – he feared death and he feared loss, so the choice was really no choice at all.

Running toward the tower where Malfoy lay in unsuspecting wait was much like those moments: There was the adrenaline. There was the fear pounding its fists against the walls of his heart and beating its wings in his stomach. There was the choice that wasn't really a choice – do something (he didn't know what; he never did) or lose something.

Harry thought that, ultimately, his "courage" – whatever he had of it – boiled down to one fear winning out over another. This time, instead of his fear of losing his life (in the broad, all-encompassing, as well as literal sense) to Voldemort winning out over his fear of Voldemort himself, it was his fear of losing whatever he'd so briefly glimpsed in the Potions cupboard winning out over his fear of being bluntly and crushingly rejected by Malfoy.

So it was that Harry broke into the stairwell leading up to the Astronomy Tower: lungs heaving from the running and the apprehension, pulse audible in his ears and beating like a second heart in his belly, and coherent thought left behind somewhere around the Portrait Hole, limping to catch up.

His plan extended as far as charging up the staircase and out onto the plateau of the Tower's top, but something stopped him the level below, before his feet ever touched the last flight of stairs. Instead, he found himself hiding (though with the cloak there was no real need) in a very similar manner to the way he had the night Dumbledore had died, while Malfoy's presence again commanded the space above him. Perhaps the distinct parallel ought to have struck him as sinister – and it did, to an extent – but there was a part of him that felt there was a certain congruity to it. It set him to wondering whether, offered a second stab at the scenario, things might play out rather better this time around.

Malfoy was pacing. He looked almost as nervous and strung out as the last time Harry had observed him here, and Harry realized despite that despite Malfoy's new candidness with Harry, he was still moderating his true emotions as much as ever, just allowing a little more to slip through the protective shell of his countenance around Harry alone.

This realization gave Harry the confidence to mount the last few stairs and emerge into the caustic breeze of the tower. It was nearly halfway through October now, and the wind was sharpening like a blade put to the grind, exacerbated further by the tower's height.

Harry did not yet reveal himself. He just stood still and silent, hoping as the wind nipped at his cloak that it might cool down the heat of confusion coalescing on the surface of his skin – doubt, determination, fear, excitement, hope, desire.

The fabric of the cloak made a quiet flapping noise as a particularly strong tendril of wind tugged at it. Malfoy's pacing came to a stop and he turned so that his eyes stared disconcertingly straight at the spot where Harry stood invisible. Harry met Malfoy's gaze steadily for a long moment in which Malfoy did not look away, though he mustn't know himself to be making eye contact with anything more corporeal than air. Then, carefully, Harry let the cloak slip from his shoulders to the ground.

Malfoy let out a gasp that was like a breath extracted by the wind, and fell back against the stone armaments.

"Potter," he stated, eyes wide, as though they couldn't reconcile their interpretation with reality.

In lieu of replying, Harry strayed forward toward Malfoy, one arm outstretched. Malfoy stood frozen, pressed against the wall, looking cornered and torn between relief and panic. Harry paused in front of him, feeling the precariousness of their balance, then tipped the scales – touching his outstretched fingers to Malfoy's arm. Malfoy jerked away and started as if Harry had shocked him. Then he turned that shock into motion and almost in the space of a blink had whipped across to the side of the tower opposite Harry.

"Malfoy," said Harry. "Why are you up here?"

Malfoy didn't answer, so Harry added a dimension which had just occurred to him. "You're not here to..." he gestured toward the wall and swallowed.

Malfoy's eyes clouded, then cleared with comprehension. "God, no, Potter. If I ever determine to off myself, you can be sure I'll do it with more dignity than tossing myself off the most convenient precipice."

A more astute constituent of Harry's mind took note that Malfoy never outright denied a desire to off himself, merely a expressed disdain for the means at hand. Yet his conscious mind was not disposed to linger on this just now.

"Why are you here, then?" he asked.

"I think the better question, Potter," said Malfoy coolly, straightening up and smoothing himself out with a renewed composure that racked Harry with additional shivers of anxiety, "is why you're here."

Harry was beginning to doubt the prudence of coming here. What exactly had Harry been expecting from this second encounter? Malfoy's abrupt termination of their kiss had been pretty clear – didn't they always say actions spoke louder than words? Yet he had come all this way; he wasn't about to back down and let it have been for nothing. He would at least hear the truth of it directly from Malfoy's tongue. Actions may speak louder than words, but words were a hell of a lot clearer.

"I'm here to talk about earlier," he said after a deep breath, taking the plunge and feeling as though he had leapt from the tower himself.

Malfoy's expression splintered for a second, then recovered and solidified again. "I don't want to talk about it," he said flatly.

"So, what, we're just going to pretend it never happened?" Harry tried to speak scornfully, but his voice came out carrying too much worry to manage it.

"Of course, Potter. What else do you think we would possibly do?" Malfoy's tone was carefully level and it galled Harry.

"Not ignore it!" Harry burst forth.

"We have to ignore it!" Malfoy's cheeks flushed and he raised his voice, but Harry far preferred it to the calm composure of a few moments before. He'd always felt Malfoy's stoicism gave him an advantage in their confrontations. They were on even ground here, both with raised tempers.

"Oh, because that's worked so well for us before," Harry said dryly, switching tactics.

It didn't work. Malfoy merely repeated, "We have to ignore it," with a shrill determination.

"Why?"

"Do you forget who we _are,_ Potter? Who you are? Who _I_ am?" Malfoy's voice broke.

"As if I could."

"Then you ought to see why any alternative to ignoring this is impossible."

"NO!" Harry's inner voice shouted. Outwardly, he was mute. He didn't know what to say. Malfoy looked at him almost desperately across the tower, like he was begging Harry to produce an argument that would assuage him.

"I know who we were," he said at last, "and so I know that's not who we are now. If it were, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't even be here. The war changed everything, Malfoy. You know that. Whatever rules of allegiances and ancestry and history we had to follow before – they're void."

"You make it sound so simple," Malfoy responded in a hoarse whisper. He stood ambivalently – part of his bearing leaning toward Harry and part of it cowering away. His expression was like a fist to a bruise; it was just this side of anguished.

Harry felt that earlier in the Potions cupboard before Malfoy had torn himself away, he'd glimpsed something that was beautiful in its impossible truth, its impossible sureness, and now it was deteriorating before his eyes. He wanted so badly to stop it from doing so, to hold on, but he didn't know how. So he did what he did best in these sort of moment-to-moment situations that could be saved or lost in one action: he improvised.

"Maybe it is," he replied. "What if it is?"

"But it isn't. It can't be," Malfoy said, but there was just enough question in it to give Harry hope. He stepped closer. Malfoy watched him warily but did not move.

"Frankly, it doesn't really make a difference to me. Nothing I've ever done has been simple," said Harry, "but that hasn't stopped me."

"What are you saying, Potter?"

"I don't know what I'm saying. I'm saying I wish you hadn't run."

Malfoy's eyes closed. "I should have run sooner," he said in a tight voice, breathing shallowly.

"Why? Do you regret it?"

Malfoy's eyes reopened. "I should. I should!" he exclaimed.

"That's not an answer. The question is: do you?"

Malfoy looked scared.

Harry felt scared.

"No," said Malfoy, in a low voice, looking unsteadily into Harry's eyes.

Harry let out a breath of relief and almost sagged with dispelled tension.

"But it can't happen again," Malfoy added.

The tension bounced back, stinging like the slap of a rubber band. "Why not?" Harry demanded.

"Because, Potter. I'm – I'm –" Malfoy gave him a pleading, beseeching look, and then, for the second time that night, turned and ran – disappearing back down the staircase. This time, Harry followed.

"Malfoy!" he called into the dark passageway. "Malfoy, come back, you insufferable prat! You think you can just walk away?"

There was no answer but the subdued clicking of quick footsteps against stone, so Harry hurtled into the stairwell after him.

"Malfoy!" he called out again as he ran. "Malfoy!"

After a minute, he glimpsed Malfoy's dark form a half a staircase ahead. The other boy was undoubtedly quicker; he could easily outrun Harry if he chose to.

"Please," said Harry, his quiet voice clear in the empty stillness of the stairwell. His heart was lodged in his throat, leaking into his voice and making the timbre rough and sincere. "Draco, please."

The name slipped off his tongue and dissolved into the dark between them, clinging to and weighing down every particle of air so that it pulled the space between them taut.

Malfoy stopped abruptly and Harry's momentum caused them to collide. He reached out to grip Malfoy by the shoulders to steady himself, then used the grip as leverage to push Malfoy somewhat roughly up against the stone wall.

Malfoy's mouth opened in surprise. "You – you said..." he stuttered.

"I know what I said," said Harry, "Draco."

Harry could feel like unsteady rise and fall of Malfoy's – Draco's, if it were to be allowed – diaphragm against his chest.

Then, without any further warning, without any awkward preamble, they were kissing again. Draco pulled Harry to him with a half-elated, half-anguished noise that sounded like a cry, and his hands flew up to clutch recklessly at Harry's face, fingers twisting into his hair and tugging.

They kissed fiercely, frantically, turbulently, insatiably. They pressed into each other's mouths like that union was the epicenter of their entire beings. Like their identities were composed of the taste of the other's tongue, the friction of the skin of the other's lips against theirs, the pressure of the other's body giving theirs purpose and shape. They only sporadically separated for frantic breaths – pants, really – and in no time Harry was overcome with the most wild, inebriated lightheadedness he'd ever experienced. In response, he only grappled at Draco's body for the best – the tightest – grip, one hand ending up curled into the valley between Draco's back and arse, and the other cupping the nape of Draco's neck for the best angle. He pressed into Draco's mouth so hard it almost hurt, yet somehow it still wasn't enough.

"Harry," said Draco during a broken pause for breath between bruising kisses, in that voice that was both reverential and bereft. "Harry."

"Draco," Harry mumbled against Draco's lips – or maybe directly into his mouth. He wasn't sure, but he felt the word vibrate and knew it had been said.

"Harry," Draco repeated. "Can't" kiss, "get enough – " kiss, "now. Need – " kiss, "more. Again and –" longer kiss, "again. I – " sigh across Harry's lips as Harry pulled back to listen,_ "_I can't stop – " another kiss, because Harry just couldn't resist, "thinking about it."

The words should have filled Harry with an irrepressible fizzy glee, but they were too choked by regret. They sounded too much like an apology.

"So don't stop," he said, massaging the skin under Draco's left ear with his thumb.

Draco's grip on Harry's waist was confused – pulling him in as hard as it was pushing him away.

"I have to," Draco pleaded.

"Not on my account," said Harry.

"But that's exactly – " Draco began, but Harry cut him off with another kiss, hoping to distract him out of whatever line of argument he was trying to construct. Draco moaned softly, as much out of frustration as pleasure.

Harry pulled back when he thought of something rational to say – it took a while.

"Everything that's happened," he said, "and you're still fighting me. When does it stop?"

Malfoy exhaled deeply and his eyes shut again and his head tipped forward until their foreheads bumped.

"It could be now," Harry said quietly, into Malfoy's ear. "We could stop fighting now and it could be like this instead. Please, let it be now."

Harry felt Draco's shaky inhalation as his chest expanded and contracted against Harry's. Draco didn't answer, but he planted a small kiss on the skin just below Harry's ear. Harry shivered.

"Now is all I can promise," Draco whispered after a moment.

It wasn't a declaration of love – nor even a true shadow of a commitment – but Draco's words, blowing across Harry's skin and lifting the small hairs on Harry's neck, felt like reconcile.

And Harry felt victorious.


	15. Lovers

**FOURTEEN **

**Lovers**

"_All thoughts, all passions, all delights, / Whatever stirs this mortal frame, / Are all but ministers of Love, / And feed his sacred flame." - Samuel Coleridge_

Draco's first thought upon waking the next morning was that he had had extremely vivid dreams. Not bad ones, thank God, but vivid ones nonetheless. Dreams where Harry Potter pursued him to deserted stairwells in the dead of night and snogged him within an inch of his life, until Draco was reduced to a whimpering, boneless puddle of lust. Dreams where Harry was a master of persuasion the rival of any lower-tier Slytherin and coaxed ill-fated promises from Draco's vulnerable heart.

His second thought was along the lines of, "Oh my God. I called him Harry." Potter. Harry. Harry Potter. He tried it outloud: "Harry." It didn't feel as strange in his mouth as ought to. Perhaps because he'd said it in the dream – which was actually further confirmation that it had, in fact, just been a dream. He never would have called Harry Potter by anything other than his surname in real life. Right?

He took a deep breath to soothe his constricting chest.

Draco's third thought brought him to his lips, which were gently pulsing as if they held a small heartbeat trapped between them. He lifted his fingers to them; they felt a little swollen. That was unusual. In fact, the only other time they'd ever felt like this was after Pansy...

His fourth thought was loud and firm – a realization: It hadn't been a dream.

Draco sat straight up in bed, his fingertips still pressed to his mouth as the night's events came rushing back. Running from Harry in the Potions cupboard. Pacing his room. Not being able to sleep. Contemplating the assistance of Nocturna Mortem. Deciding to clear his head on the Astronomy Tower instead. Getting nowhere. Harry finding him. Harry chasing him.

Kissing Harry.

Succumbing.

Draco's eyes felt too swollen for his head, his heart too swollen for his chest.

They'd snogged until Draco's lips were almost numb, though he doubted he'd ever become numb to the sensation of Harry's lips caressing and abusing his. They'd snogged like they'd never get another chance, like it had been now or never. And in a way it had been, for what was it that he had said to Harry? He'd said: "Now is all I can promise."

What was 'now,' anyway? What had he thought to mean by that? It was so vague; it said nothing. Surely the only reason it had slipped past his lips was because he hadn't been thinking – Harry had seen to that.

How long did 'now' last? Where did one now end and another begin? Was now over? Was this now?

If it was, Draco was wasting it dithering in bed. He knew the only solution was to see Harry and speak to him, but even though he knew it, he resisted it. Harry didn't know or care what was good for him, and his enthusiastic carelessness in that regard made it all too easy for Draco to forget, too, when he was with him. And therein lied the danger: despite knowing it was entirely imprudent, Draco so wanted to forget again...

Draco forced himself to relax his fists, which had clenched into his comforter, and coaxed himself out of bed. If nothing else, he had appearances to keep up and classes to attend. He couldn't stay cooped up in his room all day avoiding the real Harry Potter while alternately ravishing and throttling the one who existed purely for the purpose of occupying his thoughts.

He got up. He showered. He dressed. He collected his homework. He left his room and headed for the Great Hall.

… & …

"Harry, I know it's not the best timing, but I think you really need to start thinking about what you're going to do after we graduate," Hermione lectured her friend over oatmeal. "McGonagall is being patient with you, but it just isn't practical to think you can postpone this decision indefinitely. You can't graduate without a plan. You just can't! Have you given any thought to shadowing an Auror for a day? McGonagall said we can be excused from lessons for interviews and things, and then at least you'd know what it'd be like..." Hermione peered at Harry expectantly.

To her dismay, she realized he hadn't been paying a whit of attention to her and was in fact staring bemusedly into the space over her left shoulder. A turn of her head told her there was nothing unusual there this morning – just Slytherin table, as always.

"Harry," she said sharply.

With what appeared to be some great effort, he refocused his eyes and turned them on Hermione, trying and failing to suppress a smile that spilled out between his lips like sunlight between clouds. That smile had nothing to do with her, that much was clear. The question was, what _was _Harry smiling about? Smiles from him were so rare lately.

"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?" she asked.

"Wha'?" he asked absently, his thoughts evidently taking more time to focus than his eyes. "Oh, no."

Hermione sighed. "Not that it was that important," she said. "I was only attempting to discuss your future."

"Sorry," Harry apologized sheepishly.

Because Hermione knew he was sincere, and because he was her best friend, and most importantly because her curiosity far outweighed her annoyance, Hermione forgave him immediately.

"It can wait," she allowed.

Harry's lips quirked in gratitude as his eyes started to drift over her shoulder again.

"So," she said, reigning him back in again, "to what do we owe your relaxed spirits this morning?"

"What do you mean?"

"Judging by the insipid smile you can't try hard enough to keep off your face, I'd say you're much more content than I've seen you in a long while."

"Oh, well, I just had a really good night, I guess."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Did Ron pilfer Winky's butterbeer store again?"

"No, nothing like that."

"What, then? Did you just sleep well or something?" That in itself would be a miracle; Hermione doubted whether Harry had had a single peaceful night's sleep since the war.

"Well, I didn't sleep very much... but yeah, I slept well."

"No nightmares?" She asked in amazement, relieved for her friend if it were true.

"Nope. My dreams were far more... well, they weren't nightmarish in the least," he reported, his lips twitching playfully and his eyes sliding over her shoulder.

"That's good," she said, turning in her seat to follow Harry's gaze. But all she could see was Draco Malfoy, looking tired and slightly skittish as he drank his coffee.

What was Harry seeing that she wasn't?

… & …

Draco had managed to avoid looking at Harry all throughout breakfast. It had been an effort of constant resistance – Harry's presence tugged at him like a magnet – but his fear of what he would see and how he would feel gave him the determination to manage it.

The truth was that he didn't feel remotely ready to face Harry. To face Harry he needed to be composed and level-headed and sure of himself. As it was, he was still a mess of desires conflicting with reason and conscience. To face Harry he needed the strength born of objectivity, not this vulnerability that bared itself raw to be influenced by Harry's ill-conceived and impractical – albeit seductive – arguments.

Draco rounded a corner and almost tripped when he was abruptly yanked by the arm into an empty classroom. He was opening his mouth to protest – he'd been half-expecting an ambush all term, from people unhappy to see him free to pursue higher education, and was actually surprised it hadn't happened before – when he realized who his captor was.

"Harry," he said in a voice both wary and exquisitely pleased.

Harry appraised him with an inscrutable expression. Then he grasped the back of Draco's neck and leaned up to kiss Draco full on the mouth. Draco's lips parted in surprise, but just as his body was subduing his mind and preparing to take advantage of the situation and kiss Harry back, Harry pulled away.

Still not speaking, Harry smiled softly.

"What was that?" Draco whispered.

"That was good morning."

"Good morning?" Draco repeated.

"Good morning," Harry agreed. His arm still rested loosely around Draco's shoulders and his eyes peered up at Draco far more brightly and lucidly than they usually did this time of day.

Harry rose on his toes again to repeat his greeting and Draco's body shouted for him to comply, but his mind had regained control and wasn't about to let him snog its power away again. It wanted a say, to give approval before any sensual pursuits recommenced.

"Harry," he said.

Harry paused a few inches from Draco's mouth so that Draco felt the word, "Yes?" blow across his lips when Harry spoke it, making it very hard for Draco to maintain the determination to speak rather than close the tiny gap between their mouths and...

"Where exactly..." Draco cleared his throat. "Where do we stand?"

Harry fell back onto his heels. "Here," he said obtusely.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Not literally," he drawled.

"How then?"

"I mean... this," Draco said, gesturing, too scared to articulate what he meant. Somehow the words, "You and me snogging each other senseless like we've been dying for this for years," would not take form on his tongue.

"I know," said Harry. "Here. We stand here."

Draco simply looked at him.

"You said you only wanted 'now,' right?" Harry said, throwing Draco's – for all practical purposes – meaningless words back at him. "Well, this is now."

"So it is," said Draco. Forget that he'd been the first one to suggest it; was that what Harry really wanted – just now, nothing more?

Harry peered up at him expectantly.

"And what exactly does 'now' entail?" Draco asked, with a certain reluctance.

"Do we have to have a definition?" Harry countered. "Can't it just be about seizing the moment?"

Draco tried to ignore the curve of Harry's upper lip that made not kissing him an effort of constant resistance and instead tried to rationalize the implications of 'seizing the moment.' In theory, he was in favor of the moment. 'The moment' promised heated breaths and grasping and plenty of lips and hips and hands. However, a moment sounded awfully short. And although when he was alone with his relentlessly practical mind he knew a relationship with Harry was entirely out of the question, standing here with Harry he found himself aching at the idea of their connection being restricted to a series of moments, however delirious.

Harry's eyes and mouth and Draco's heart and pulse and nerves allied themselves to win out over Draco's mind. "Okay," he said at last.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

Before Draco could react, Harry pressed a quick kiss to his lips, said, "See you in class," and then slipped out the door.

… & …

Georgia was not paying attention to her Potions partner, who was alternating between lecturing her on participation and academic entrepreneurship and begging her fortheloveofGod to do _something _to help. Unfortunately for her, Georgia was busy. Busy watching Harry Potter.

Georgia laughed to herself as she watched the pretty Slytherin boy tease Harry flirtatiously – he was so delusional. As if Harry, of all Gryffindors, would ever consent to date a Slytherin! Besides, Harry didn't lean that way. She had made sure of that; he had said so. That being so, it was so noble of him to smile back at his partner like that. He was surely trying to protect the Slytherin's feelings. Never mind that no Slytherin, especially not that Slytherin, deserved protection – that was the sort of person Harry was. It was why Georgia loved him.

However, that no longer mattered. Theirs was a love doomed to be cut off at the stem before it reached full bloom. Georgia took a moment to sigh. That was why she was able to find the Slytherin's advances merely amusing rather than intolerable (after all, she had told him in no uncertain terms to back off!).

"Georgia!" cried her partner.

"What?" she whined.

Slughorn shot them a look, and Harry glanced their way. Georgia smiled at him and waved coquettishly.

"Please," begged her partner on the cusp between exasperation and desperation. She was a dramatic one, Georgia thought. Always carrying on so. Potions wasn't exactly life and death, was it? Now Divinations, on the other hand... "Please, can you just pull the petals off this flower?"

Not bothering to ask what specimen exactly she was deflowering,"Fine," Georgia agreed. She was an expert at de-petaling flowers, after all. She practically wrote the apothegm, "He loves me, he loves me not." Or she got more use out of it than the original writer, anyway. Of that much she was sure.

Her partner heaved a sigh of relief and wiped a couple errant droplets of sweat off her brow when the class finished without anything boiling over or blowing up.

Georgia saw Harry leaving the classroom on the heels of his partner and lunged for her bag.

"Great lesson!" she exclaimed hastily to her partner. "I'm really sorry, but I've got to run now – something important to tell... someone – so do you think you could tidy up pretty please? You understand, right?"

Her partner opened her mouth.

"Oh, great!" gushed Georgia. "You are too, too fab!" Then she rushed out of the classroom after Harry.

Most of the class was still putting their things away back in the classroom, so the corridor was virtually empty. Georgia spotted Harry and the Slytherin – Malfoy was his name, she remembered – at the other end of the corridor. They were standing about two feet apart and not facing each other directly, but there didn't otherwise seem to be any tension between them. Georgia reflected that it was a good thing that Malfoy had gotten his lust for Harry back under control, as his raging passions were certainly to blame for his attack on Harry in the corridor a couple weeks ago.

They fell silent as Georgia approached them.

"Harry!" she greeted brightly. Oh, was he fit...

"Georgia?" was Harry's response.

"McDonnell." The Slytherin's voice was not unpleasant, but much like his unarguably good looks, it had a sophistication which seemed to dangle tauntingly downward from somewhere just beyond Georgia's reach, and she couldn't forgive him for it.

"Malfoy," she acknowledged with a curt nod.

The three of them stood looking at one another.

"I need to speak to you for a moment," she told Harry. "Alone."

He and Malfoy exchanged a look. For some reason, Malfoy appeared reluctant to cede Harry's company to Georgia. Even odder was that Harry seemed equally reluctant.

"It's rather urgent," she added.

Harry seemed to sigh inwardly. "Alright," he granted.

Georgia blushed as Malfoy glanced coolly between them, the unsettling beauty of his gaze lingering on Harry, then slipped away.

"You know," Georgia mused, "I reckon he's not quite over you just yet."

"You think?" Harry asked, sounding markedly less anxious about the idea than he had the first time she'd mentioned it. In fact, he almost sounded amused, though Georgia couldn't fathom why.

"Yeah. Anyway," she said, pulling him into a nearby alcove. "Much better. Now we can have some privacy."

"For what, exactly?"

"Don't look so worried! I just need to tell you – warn you – about something."

"You're planning to warn me about something urgent and you want me to not worry?" Harry asked, but he no longer looked so concerned.

Georgia waved a hand at him dismissively and went on. "Here's the thing. Remember that Divination exam I told you about, with the crystal ball reading?"

"Erm... yes?"

"Well, I did it last night and..."

"And?"

"You're not going to like this."

"But you're going to tell me anyway."

"Well, yeah. You should know."

"Okay then. Let's have it."

"It's about you."

"I figured as much."

"And your love life."

"My love life?" The anxiety crept back into Harry's expression. "What do you know about my love life?"

_Not as much as I'd like, _Georgia thought to herself. "Nothing!" she swore. "Well, nothing specific. Just that... that the next person you fall in love with bears the stain and shadow of the Grim!"

"You're not serious."

Georgia bristled. "I'm completely serious! You really ought to be careful, Harry. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your love will come at great cost to the lucky – or rather, unlucky – recipient. Sinister things will befall them!"

"Sinister things?" he echoed.

"Yes! Their fate is shrouded in darkness!" she exclaimed. Then she went on in a more serious tone, "Which is why, I'm afraid, things aren't going to work out between us." Harry's mouth fell open. "Oh please don't be upset, Harry! I hope you understand. I just can't risk things becoming too heavy and..."

"Suffering the sinister things of the Grim?" he supplied.

"Yes," she said gravely.

"I understand completely," he assured her.

"Oh! Do you?" she exclaimed with relief. "I'm so glad! I could never stand to think I'd hurt you!"

"Don't worry about me," he said. "Only think of what's best for yourself. You're right – honestly, it's safer for you to stay away from me."

Georgia nearly swooned. Harry was so selfless!

"Oh," she sighed. "Oh, I am so relieved you understand. You can't know how worried I've been... But Harry," she added, "promise me you'll be careful? If it's not me, it'll be someone else." _Damn them whoever they are_, she added to herself. _But I've made my choice. Even Harry isn't worth throwing my life away for. Death is only romantic in novels._

"I'll be alright. I've, ah, dealt with the Grim before," Harry reassured her. "Thank you for the warning, Georgia. I should go now, though. I have to..." He gestured vaguely toward the open corridor. "See you 'round."

"But—" she began as he walked away, finishing to herself: "It's not you been threatened."

… & …

"Ginny," said Hermione to Ginny after dinner a couple of days later. They were sitting together by the fire in the common room, Hermione with a book across her lap and Ginny curled up in the armchair beside her. "Is it just me, or does Harry seem happier than usual lately? Almost... blissful?"

Ginny turned to look at Harry, who was sitting off to one side of them, gazing into the fireplace, the firelight accentuating the absently upturned corners of his lips in a flickering partnership of light and shadow.

"It's not just you," she said. "He does." She smiled to herself as she looked at him.

"I haven't seen him this content since... well, in ages," said Hermione. "Do you know what it is?"

Ginny turned back to Hermione. "Me? Oh, no. I haven't talked to him properly in ages. Almost three days ago, I think."

"Three days ago."

"Yes, three days."

"What could have happened in three days?"

"Loads," Ginny assured her, lips curled in her signature impish grin. "More than you might imagine."

"Ginny, what exactly do you know?" Hermione pressed, leaning forward.

Ginny opened her mouth to reply, but just then they were interrupted by an owl tapping at the window.

To their right, Harry started. Upon whipping his head around to see the owl hovering on the other side of the windowpane, he shot up ungracefully from his seat and dashed to let it in. He took the small folded parchment the bird carried and hastily opened it. It must have been a short missive, because not a moment had passed before he was folding it back up and biting his lip to keep from beaming. Then he glanced over at them.

"Harry? What is it? Who's it from?" Hermione pried.

"Oh – nobody. It's nothing. I – I think I'll just go up to bed now," he replied, then abruptly disappeared up to the boys dormitory.

"Hmph," Hermione grunted to herself. 'Nobody' – she didn't buy that for a second.

Hermione gave Ginny a look, but Ginny merely shrugged her shoulders in the universal gesture of "Don't ask me!"

Well, then. If all anyone was going to do was tease her with fragmented hints at real answers, so be it. Hermione was sure the truth would become clear enough to her sooner or later; it always did. Yes, it galled her that the library would be of no use in solving this particular dilemma, but really, it was only a matter of time.

… & …

Harry shut the dormitory door behind him and pulled the note out of his robe's pocket to read it over once more before he burned it:

_Prefects bathroom, third floor. You know the password._

It was not signed, but Harry had no doubt who it was from. He whispered, "Incendio," and watched the parchment curl and crumble into black dust between his fingers. There was an unspoken agreement between him and Draco to keep their... for lack of a better word, affair absolutely secret, which with roommates like Harry's necessitated melodramatic measures like note burning.

His 'affair' with Draco had carbonated Harry's world. He constantly felt as if he'd had one too many butterbeers. He could hardly keep a straight face and couldn't hold still for more than ten consecutive seconds.

Harry threw on his cloak and headed back downstairs toward the Portrait Hole, sneaking past Ginny and Hermione (Ron was there too, but was asleep with his head on Hermione's lap and therefore irrelevant).

Hermione's brow was furrowed in thought. Harry knew she'd seen through his flimsy explanation of the note and was in all probability doing her best to riddle it out even as he snuck out to consummate its contents. And knowing her, it wouldn't take her all that long. He'd probably have to confront her, at least, about Draco sooner than he'd like. Ginny, too, since she already knew some of it. But Ron... Harry's gut twisted when he thought about Ron. So he didn't. He turned his thoughts to Draco instead, and was thus preoccupied all the way to the third floor.

When he reached the Prefects bathroom he slipped in quietly. Inside, he let the cloak fall from his shoulders and slide to the floor in a silvery puddle.

"Draco?" he called softly into the dark bathroom, taking a few steps in.

He heard a muffled, "Alohomora," and the click of the lock sealing behind him, followed by the rustle of robes moving through darkness.

And then he was pinned to the wall.

Draco's hands grasped Harry's waist and pushed him against the stone wall, pinning Harry there with the persistent pressure of his own firm body against Harry's. Harry's exclamation of surprise and exhilaration was cut short by Draco's lips meeting his, taking the sound from his tongue.

If the ache of Harry's desire building throughout the day were a balloon stretched tight against too much helium, then Draco's kisses were the needle that punctured the skin of that balloon and sent the lust gushing out in a wild, desperate rush of lips and tongues and hands and panting and hot skin and moans.

"We have to stop meeting like this," joked Harry archly, panting, when they came up for air.

Draco's eyes, when he looked into Harry's, were the crisp gray of pencil lead smudged with lust. Pieces of white-blonde hair fell wantonly across his forehead like renegade beams of moonlight. "Not on your life," he swore in a throaty voice that set the second heart in Harry's pants to pulsing and tingling.

Harry wound his hands into Draco's beautiful hair, soft and inviting, to pull those pink kiss-pouted lips back to his, and that was the last talking they did for some time.

Harry's hands were all over Draco – in his hair, sliding along his arms, down his back, up his thighs, on his arse – grappling anywhere and everywhere they could reach for leverage to tug him closer, closer to Draco. They slid along the wall, spinning so Draco's back was pressed against it, then Harry's, and back to Draco, until they came to a stretch of sinks. Then Draco took dominance again and hoisted Harry up onto the counter behind him so that he was standing between Harry's legs and their faces were the same height. Harry wrapped his legs around Draco's torso and trapped him snugly against the pulsing centers of his body – the beating origins of his two hearts.

Never once did their eager lips part. A frenzied, desperate need was coiling in Harry's bones, and Draco was matching him grasp for grasp and pant for pant,passion for passion and _Oh, bloody hell_... Romeo was right – this was madness. But it was the most delicious kind of madness Harry had ever felt.

Harry pulled away with a final heady, slow kiss on Draco's mouth and several more lingering kisses across his face. "It's getting late," he said. "We should go to detention."

"Sod detention," said Draco, kissing Harry's mouth softly.

"Mmm..." hummed Harry. "But..." Draco kissed him again, tracing Harry's lips with his tongue before using it to tease Harry's, making Harry tingle all over and lose his train of thought entirely.

Then Draco's lips slid away. "You're right," he said. "We should go."

Harry groaned, so quietly it was more of a vibration in the depths of his throat than an actual sound. "Okay," he reluctantly agreed.

"We oughtn't both go at once."

"No," Harry nodded. "Better not, just in case."

Their lips met again for a few seconds, drawn together unthinkingly, like two magnets.

"I'll go first," Draco said when they separated again.

"Okay, you go," offered Harry bemusedly.

Instead of going, Draco kissed Harry again. He cradled the back of Harry's neck and kissed him deeply and tenderly, with Harry's arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. Afterwards, Harry pressed his hot cheek against Draco's and felt their hearts beating fervently in their chests.

Finally Draco stirred, pressing lips wet from kissing to Harry's temple then disentangling himself and stepping away. The shadows emphasized the post-snog flushed vitality of his countenance and Harry ached at the beauty of it, and the pride and awe in knowing he had put that flush there.

Draco didn't say a word as he left, but the expression in his eyes was all the goodbye Harry needed.

When he was gone, Harry leaned back against the mirror behind him, taking deep breaths to slow his lascivious heartbeat.

It had been like this for the past two days – the tension of suppressed longing building between them all day, together and apart, then erupting in brief clandestine meetings scheduled by note or covert whisper in class. Since that first morning they hadn't verbally acknowledged what was happening between them, nor had they spoken of what would happen if and when this effervescent bubble of private, insatiable sexual appetite was broken by the reality of unsexy scheduling conflicts, homework loads, or even discovery.

They had certainly not spoken of the monster lurking in the shadowy corners of their arrangement, growling: attachment.

The initial rush of victory Harry had felt at Draco's concession in the Astronomy Tower that they could have 'now' had faded. Instead, a regret for encouraging the no strings policy that he'd thought was the only way Draco would consent to consummating (without ever quenching) their desire was increasingly gnawing at the back of his mind.

He regretted it in his rational moments, when he acknowledged that they wouldn't be able to sustain this affair as they had been – secretively, albeit passionately, without discussion.

He regretted it when the morning light caught Draco's hair in Potions and made it glow like some kind of ironic, earth-bound halo.

He regretted it when something he said sparked that unexpected, stunning smile that was one of Draco's best kept secrets.

He regretted it when Draco ducked his head and played with his fingers while admitting something personal to Harry, when the realization of how vulnerable he was making himself to Harry on those occasions plucked at the strings of Harry's heart.

He regretted it when Draco's whispers tickled his ears as he whispered to Harry; when his posture stiffened in response to a jab at his family or his past and Harry was gripped with a fierce instinct to protect him; when he raised his hand in class and gave, with cool confidence and elegant enunciation, the correct answers.

In fact, it was starting to be such that the only time he _didn't_ regret it was when he was with Draco, and therefore too distracted to think about it.

Harry sighed. He'd been trying ardently to ignore this regret and live in the moment, but that was becoming more and more difficult. The affair was transcending simple lust for him.

He was falling for Draco Malfoy, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

… & …

"Harry!" Ginny called out as she emerged from the Portrait hole, spotting him walking quickly away down the corridor. "Wait up!"

Harry turned and paused.

"Hey," he said as she approached. "Um, I'm actually on my way to –"

"Not again?" She interrupted him. "I've hardly spoken three words to you in days! You're constantly going somewhere!"

"I'm just busy, I guess," he offered.

"With what? You've never been too busy for me before," she pouted.

"I'm sorry, Gin. I've just got a lot of... stuff to do."

"Uh huh."

"Honestly! I'm behind on loads of homework, and there's Quidditch practices... I hardly have time to sleep."

"Well, you never do much sleeping anyway," she argued, "but you do need to eat. So come have lunch with us." She took hold of his arm and began dragging him toward the staircase.

He extracted himself. "Gin, I can't," he said. "I have to go meet – someone."

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Someone?"

"Yeah, someone. I... I have a new Potions tutor."

"Harry James Potter," Ginny said sternly, "You are a terrible liar. I will let you go now, but you _will _tell me what's going on."

Chastened, Harry's shoulders slumped a little. "I know," he sighed. "I will. I promise."

"Soon," she demanded.

"Soon," he agreed.

"Okay," said Ginny, thus placated. "Off you go then."

"Thanks Gin." Harry tugged affectionately on the ends of her long red hair, then turned and hasted away down the corridor.

Ginny shook her head to herself. She had a good idea what was going on, but she wanted to hear it from him.

A few minutes later found her at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, eating lunch with Ron and Hermione. Hermione was clearly agitated, her thoughts elsewhere as she pushed her food around her plate and responded to Ron's enthusiastic monologue with noncommittal 'Mhmm's.'

"Where's Harry?" she asked, interrupting Ron mid-sentence in a description of an incident in Transfiguration involving an unfortunate student volunteer, an inept seventh year, and an appearance shaping charm.

"He's, ah, studying," supplied Ginny.

"Studying?" Hermione repeated. "At lunch?"

"Yeah, odd, I know. But I guess he's really behind or something."

"Hmm," said Hermione.

"Can't blame him," said Ron. "I have three essays due this week just in History of Magic."

This distracted Hermione from Harry's absence momentarily. "Ron!" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say you haven't even started? You know we have that partner project coming up in Transfiguration that's going to take up all our time. You should have worked ahead!"

"I know, 'Mione. I just..."

"You'd just rather show off your prowess at Wizard's Chess by challenging all the first years," she snapped. "You ought to be in the library with Harry right now."

Ron's ears went pink. Ginny suppressed a giggle. It was so fun to watch Hermione nag Ron like a disgruntled housewife that it almost made up for the disgusting ordeal that was witnessing them snogging.

"Aw, come on, Hermione," he complained. "It's lunch. I'm on break."

"You can go on break when your work's done," she reprimanded.

"Do you reckon Harry's in the library?" Ron asked Ginny, attempting to change the subject. "I have some Quidditch strategies I want to talk to him about, but I haven't seen him around in ages..."

"Oh," said Ginny, caught in her cover for Harry. "Well, I mean, he's studying, so I s'pose."

"Brilliant. I'll just go talk to him now," said Ron, getting up from the table. "And then study," he added hastily when Hermione glared at him.

"No!" Ginny exclaimed. If he went now, he would see that Harry wasn't there. And even Ron would start to wonder if Harry's one feeble cover for his absences was blown.

Ron gave her a strange look.

"I mean, I don't think you should disturb him right now. He seemed really stressed when I saw him," she improvised.

Thank goodness Ron was such a noble friend. Her appeal to Harry's mental health had him sitting right back down.

"Good thinking," he said. "It can wait. I can talk to him in the common room tonight."

Hermione, however, was not as ready to accept this excuse. Not for the first time, Ginny felt Hermione's keen, sagacious gaze peering at her, trying to extract the truth. Ginny was a good liar, but she knew her limits. She wouldn't be able to hold up much longer under Hermione's scrutiny, even knowing so little as she did. And she didn't want to betray Harry.

"So," she said, standing. "I should go. Class soon."

"But you've hardly eaten anything," protested Ron, as ever incapable of fathoming how anyone could leave the table without first polishing off half of everything within arm's reach.

"I'm not that hungry," Ginny claimed. Then, realizing abruptness and speed were her only chance at unimpeded escape, said, "Well, see you later, cheers!" and quickly stepped away from the table and toward the door.

"Phew," she said under her breath. Unless this secret of Harry's was spilled soon, she would have to start avoiding Hermione and Ron too. And with Harry so preoccupied, that would leave her quite lonely indeed. She hoped for her sake that Harry fessed up sooner rather than later.

… & …

"Come on," whispered Harry from beneath the invisibility cloak, tugging on Draco's sleeve, "Madame Pince has gone out. Nobody's around."

Draco looked up from the textbook open on the table in front of him and gave the room a quick scan with his shrewd grey eyes. They crinkled at the edges when he confirmed Harry's statement. He grinned wickedly at the seat where Harry was invisibly keeping him company and stood up, hooking his hand around the crook of Harry's elbow and pulling Harry up with him. They stood close, knees, hips, and torsos touching through the material of the cloak. Ascertaining that they were still alone, Harry opened the cloak and pulled Draco inside.

Draco's fingers snaked in between Harry's, chilly at first but rapidly warming. They hustled over to a secluded alcove and Harry pushed Draco firmly up against one of the shelves. Draco pressed himself up against Harry, the contours of their bodies curving tenderly together, and lowered his face down to Harry's so that their foreheads were touching. Harry's pulse was racing and his skin buzzed in anticipation. The cloak trapped their heat, swirling it around them in an intimate cocoon.

Draco's breath wafted across Harry's face in a warm wash of air. The blonde boy's expression was soft and serious, his eyes curling up in Harry's. The public distance between them had melted in a matter of seconds, disintegrating into no more than a million particles of air that were swept away like nothing. Now there was nothing but breathing and skin and Harry and Draco and proximity... oh, perilous and heady proximity...

… & …

Ron heard a swish of fabric, loud in the silent library, and looked up. He was so easily and eagerly distracted from studying that a noise as quiet as that was ample enough to snatch his attention, which was why Hermione was forcing him to study in these damned secluded corners of the library in the first place. The was nothing to_ look_ at here, he'd protested. But of course that was her point. Unlike her, he failed to be distracted by rows and rows of books. There was nothing else for him to do but the work he'd been neglecting. He cursed his thoughtlessness in admitting to being so behind. Under Hermione's direction, he now actually had to catch up.

Now, however, a distraction had emerged. Thus intrigued, he strained his ears, listening for further movement. There was nothing for a minute and so, disappointed, he started to turn back to his work. But then another sound emerged from the still depths of library, a subdued murmuring. And it sounded nearby. In fact, it sounded like it was coming from the other side of the wall of shelves in front of him.

Ron stood up carefully, trying not to make any noise that might alert the clandestine speakers to his presence and tiptoed over to the corner where his side of the shelves turned back on itself towards the other side. As he listened, the murmuring stopped, and for a panicked second Ron feared he'd been heard.

He froze.

Then he heard the unmistakeable – even to his undiscerning ears – soft slurping sounds of kissing. From what he could tell, as a blind listener, the couple was rather keen on one another. Keen, indeed. Ron couldn't stop himself from leaning further around the corner to get a look at who it was.

The alcove was empty.

It was also now quiet again. Confused, Ron blinked several times and shook his head, wondering if the hours of isolated studying had caused him to start imagining things. But then he heard a distinct, though quiet, sound of lips parting, and a sigh. There_ was_ someone there. Which could only mean...

It was Harry. It had to be. Who else could snog invisibly? Harry, sharing his invisibility cloak. That's who. A hot blush surged up from Ron's neck and turned his cheeks a smoldering shade of red that clashed with the orange-red of his bright hair. For a moment he was paralyzed with the sheer embarrassment of having walked in on his best friend mid-snog, even if he couldn't actually _see_ anything. Then he came to and reeled backwards, dashing back toward his table and forgetting in his haste to be cautious about noise.

Had Harry seen him? He hoped not, praying he'd been right about the enthusiasm of the snog – that Harry had been too otherwise occupied to have noticed his best friend lurking behind bookshelves. And if he had been seen, well, Ron could apologize later. It was an honest mistake, really.

_But who in bloody hell had Harry been snoggin_g?

Pausing on the way back to his table, Ron noticed that there was only one other occupied table in the library. Presumably occupied, anyway. The occupant's things were present, but not the occupant themselves. As to the identity of the occupant... Ron felt sure it would be Harry's secret suitor. He tread quietly over to the table, seeing Hermione's disapproving glare in his mind all the while but unable to quell his curiosity.

Ron scowled upon finding the things on the table to be entirely unrevealing. There were a few textbooks and a parchment filled with a half-finished assignment, regrettably unsigned. Unless he was willing to scan every bloke's handwriting for a match, these artifacts would get him nowhere. Ron was just about to turn back to his table in defeat – he'd so wanted to be the one to solve a mystery, for once – when something else caught his eye.

The author of the essay had left their quill laying across the parchment – an insignificant thing in itself, but the type of quill it was made it noteworthy. Most Hogwarts students used standard issue grey-feathered quills harvested from the school's owls that they could buy from their heads of Houses and replace throughout the year. This quill, however, was longer, more elegant of plume, and black as a starless night.

Ron went back to his table in triumph. There could only be one quill as extraordinary as that in the school, he was sure. And he was going to find out who it belonged to.

… & ...

Draco Malfoy knew how to kiss.

His hand was entwined in Harry's hair, the other wrapped possessively around Harry's waist. Harry couldn't even think coherently about what their mouths were doing. All he could do was cling to Draco and let the sensations surge through him as Draco's lips pressed and prodded and sucked Harry's in a seductive dance between gentle and desperate with lust.

Draco pulled away and sighed against Harry's aroused mouth. The unconscious action tugged on Harry's heart. He was just leaning up to reward Draco with another kiss for being so unintentionally and heartbreakingly sweet when a sudden sound startled him. He whipped his head towards the direction of the noise and found himself staring into the shocked and blushing face of Ron Weasley. They both froze at exactly the same moment, staring straight at one another so directly that for a moment he forgot Ron couldn't actually see him.

Harry hardly dared breathe, and he could feel from the tense brace of Draco's body against his that Draco wasn't doing much breathing either. Then Ron turned and disappeared around the shelves.

Harry's eyebrows furrowed. Even if Ron had heard them, he couldn't possibly have figured out who he was seeing. Or rather, not seeing. _Right?_

"Shit," said Draco, so quietly Harry wasn't sure he hadn't actually just read Draco's lips rather than heard him.

"Invisibility cloak," whispered Harry against Draco's lips, "remember?"

Instead of responding, Draco sealed their mouths together once more.


	16. Such Sweet Sorrow

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN **

**Such Sweet Sorrow**

"_The opposite of love is not to hate but to separate. If love and hate have something in common it is because, in both cases, their energy is that of bringing and holding together—the lover with the loved, the one who hates with the hated. Both passions are tested by separation." - John Berger_

Harry woke early on Saturday morning – rising, showering, dressing, and exiting the portrait hole by eight o'clock. Ginny was an early riser, and he had a thoroughly overdue conversation to have with her. At this hour, they were ensured privacy, even in the Great Hall.

As he suspected, she was already sitting at Gryffindor table when he entered the hall, reading a witch-lit novel over a plate of french toast. There was a smattering of other students scattered throughout the hall – mostly at Hufflepuff table, where they made a lifestyle out being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed – but it was mostly deserted.

"Just a sec," she said as Harry sat down opposite her. "Lemme just finish this page."

Harry helped himself to a couple slices of french toast and poured himself some coffee. After a minute Ginny bookmarked her page and set her book to the side.

"So," she said, taking a sip of her own coffee and surveying Harry with big brown eyes.

"So..." said Harry.

Ginny raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"I s'pose you want to know what I've been up to," Harry said resignedly. He knew this was Ginny and that she'd take this news better than anyone... but something in him still wanted to keep it a secret.

"I s'pose I do," she quipped, a coy smile playing at the corners of her lips.

Harry traced the rim of his coffee mug with his fingertip. "I'm having an affair," he admitted. "With Draco Malfoy."

"I knew it!" Ginny exclaimed, standing up to reach across the table, clasp Harry's cheeks between her hands, and press an exuberant, affectionate kiss to his forehead. "I knew it." She beamed at him and took his hand in hers, squeezing happily.

"You're happy?" he asked, nonplussed. He had been hoping, at best, for understanding.

"Happy? Do you have any idea how utterly _dreamy_ this is?" she sighed.

"Yes," he said, "actually, I do."

"Oh, my God. Details, Harry. I need details. Oh, this is so much better than witch-lit..."

Harry's lips quirked in spite of himself. What would he do without Ginny? "Well..." he said. "There's been a bit of snogging..."

"Ah! Snogging!" swooned Ginny, pressing a hand rapturously to her heart.

Harry laughed.

"And?" she prompted. "Is it good?"

"It's... it's..." How to describe the heart pounding, skin burning, breath stealing, mind spinning, nerve fizzing, soul touching experience that was kissing Draco Malfoy? How to affix a single word to the fumbling, passionate entanglement of their limbs and bodies and mouths, the tormenting anxiety of waiting and the delirious ecstasy of meeting? "It's amazing," he concluded.

"Oh, that's an understatement, isn't it? I can see it in your face." Ginny sighed again, happily. Harry wanted to sigh, too. Ginny's happiness was, if it were possible, compounding his own. "So is it official, then?" she asked. "Are you Harry&Malfoy now?"

"No," said Harry hurriedly, his borrowed effervescence fizzling out like a popped balloon. "He's not my boyfriend."

Ginny sat back in her chair. Her smile faded like a sunset on fast-forward. "No?" she asked.

"No. I mean, we're just sort of... going with the flow."

"The flow."

"Yes, the flow."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean – 'the flow'?"

"You know..."

"Not really."

"We're just enjoying the pleasure of each other's, er... company, without bringing emotions and stuff into it," he explained. "Casual, like." Harry cringed inwardly as he said it. Somehow hearing outloud made it seem idiotic, and the look on Ginny's face was making him feel self-conscious.

"What?" Ginny asked, as if this were the stupidest thing she'd ever heard.

"What's wrong? I thought you were happy about this," Harry deflected.

"I was," she said, "until now. Harry, you haven't done one thing without being driven by emotions in your entire life. I'm not sure you even know what 'casual' means. So what is this really about?"

Harry sighed. Trying to fool Ginny wouldn't be like trying to fool himself. Honesty would be easier, he decided. She'd get it out of him anyway. "I just... I don't think that's what Draco's in this for. I don't think he wants me like that," he confessed.

"Like what?"

"Like... a boyfriend. All 'official' and romantic and holding hands in the corridor."

"How does he want you, then?" Ginny asked, making no attempt to hide her skepticism.

"Somebody to fool around with? I don't know."

"Harry. Are you seriously telling me that you think out of all the people – girls and boys – in the school Malfoy could go for a bit of casual snogging, he would choose you? Come on. You and Malfoy together is a huge risk, even if you are trying to keep it secret – which I think has disaster written all over it, by the way. Nobody takes huge risks without being emotionally involved."

"Then why did he say that now was all he could promise?" Harry asked in a ragged voice.

"He said that?"

Harry nodded. "Looked like a deer caught in the headlights until I volunteered that we could just worry about now and nothing else."

"You suggested that?" Ginny's eyes went, if possible, even wider.

"Yeah."

Ginny let out a long breath. "I don't know why he'd say that," she admitted, "any more than I understand why you'd agree to it. But I can't believe he'd be doing this without having any feelings for you."

"I'm not so sure." The corner of Harry's mouth twinged into a frown.

Ginny took a deep breath and pushed her thick, morning-wild hair back from her face. "Forget what you think Malfoy does or doesn't want for a minute and lemme just ask you this, Harry: what do _you_ want?"

What did he want? He wanted Draco. He wanted Draco any way he could get him. For now, at least, that was enough – more than enough. But in the future? Harry wasn't sure about the future. He didn't know if or for how long he could continue wanting Malfoy at any cost.

"I want... Well, I just want to be with him." Ginny's expression softened as she listened. "And, I guess in an ideal world I would want to be with him without secrets or sneaking around. I'd want us to be a proper couple, who went on dates and did homework together and shared friends." He paused, imagining how this would be and admitting to himself how much he liked the idea. Then he sighed. "But this is me and Malfoy we're talking about, Gin. I have to be realistic. I know I can't have everything. If I wanted a normal boyfriend, I shouldn't have picked him."

"True. But it's not unrealistic to have certain expectations, Harry. If you want a boyfriend, you deserve one. Not some hiding in closets, secret messages, invisibility cloak clandestine lover, however romantic or exciting it might seem now."

At the words 'invisibility cloak' Harry's eyes widened. He leaned toward Ginny and lowered his voice. "You know about that?" he whispered urgently.

"About what?" she asked, brows wrinkled.

"The – oh, never mind," Harry said, blushing and hastening to change the subject when he realized her confusion was genuine.

"Harry, what?" she pressed, face brightening mischievously, the serious side of the subject dropped. "Tell me! It sounds very promising, and you are distracting me from my novel, you know... You owe me some kind of entertainment." She smirked.

As Ginny coaxed what fragments of his library tryst she could out of him, the back of Harry's mind was preoccupied with what she'd said before she'd maxed out on her serious quota for the morning. The bits about 'boyfriend' and 'expectations' and 'deserving' latched onto his thoughts and wouldn't let go. He'd though he and Draco were finally meeting candidly, without hidden agenda's, but what if he was being used, even still? Not on purpose, of course – it had been him who offered to relinquish the expectation of a relationship that followed every first kiss, after all. But what if, in some roundabout way, he was using himself? He'd been willing to say whatever he needed to to coax Draco into the instant sensual gratification that had dangled in front of Harry's lust-addled eyes at the time, but ultimately Ginny was right. He wanted a boyfriend, not a secret.

… & …

Ron Weasley was eating breakfast alone. He'd overslept his dorm mates, his barmy sister got up with the sun, and Hermione was in the library already even though it was Saturday. He sighed, bemoaning his solitude and wondering how many excuses he could come up with to put off his homework before Hermione caught on. Not very many, he guessed morosely, considering how diligent she'd been about getting him caught up lately.

His spirits experienced a sudden surge as he realized he could put his rare solitude to good use – he would begin his investigation for the black-plumed quill.

Ron lifted his head from his plate of bacon, eggs, and french toast floating on a small sea of syrup and decided that scanning the room was a good place to start. It was so obvious it was genius, he thought.

He looked first at his fellow Gryffindors. They were among the least likely to own black-plumed quills, perhaps, but were the most likely candidates for being Harry's paramour. After getting distracted by a sixth-year named Lizzie's disregard for changing out of skimpy pajamas for Saturday breakfasts, he realized he was looking at the wrong gender. He still wasn't used to thinking of his best mate as a poof, though he supposed Hermione might have a point when she chastised him for referring to it as poofiness in the first place. It was simply a question of who Harry liked, she urged him, and was thus nothing more bizarre than Ron preferring herself over Georgia McDonnell. He'd asserted that he didn't think it was quite the same thing – nobody with any taste at all would prefer Georgia over Hermione; it was an obvious choice. But she'd simply said, "Exactly my point," and he'd decided there wasn't really any point in arguing.

Thus straightened out (heh heh), Ron switched his focus to the boys and made much less distracted progress, but still – no luck. He wasn't disappointed, though; the less obvious a choice Harry had made, the more exciting it would be to uncover. He turned next to the Ravenclaws, thinking they'd be likely candidates for having library kinks. (Even with Hermione, Ron drew the line at snogging with books – too weird. Apparently Harry didn't have the same qualms.) Again, no sign of the elegant midnight plume. Same for Hufflepuff, though Ron really hadn't expected to find anything there – Harry with a Hufflepuff? It was laughable.

Finally, as a formality, he decided to give Slytherin a look. He ran a cursory glance down the table, his belief in the impossible causing him to scan quickly and without close attention. Deciding his assumptions assured, and disappointed – but not surprised – that his first stab at investigation had come up short, he began to turn back to his breakfast. But before his thoughts could be won over by the allure of sugar and carbs, his eye was drawn instinctively back down the Slytherin table, landing on a certain lone blonde head in the sea of dark browns and blacks. His mouth fell open.

Draco Malfoy was scribbling with a black-feathered quill.

Ron gaped open-mouthed at the bitterly sworn object of his resentment and agent of his humiliation. When his mouth began to dry out he swigged a mouthful of pumpkin juice and forced himself to keep it shut afterward. Honestly, there was no need to get so buggered. It was just a coincidence. It was entirely possible that two people in all of Hogwarts could have the same distinctive quill, but it was not possible that Harry's secret paramour could be... could be... Ron couldn't even say it.

He would just have to find the owner of that second quill, that's all.

… & …

Harry snaked an arm around Draco's waist and pulled him close, rising onto his tiptoes to press a slow kiss to Draco's mouth. When Harry's lips met his it was like something inside Draco sighed in sheer relief. Like something tight and restricting loosened and slipped away so that he felt as if every molecule in his body had been drugged asleep and then woken up all at once.

Somehow, Harry had this power. His kisses seemed to pull the stains of darkness, bleakness, and regret from Draco's very cells so that Draco began to feel pure and lighthearted in a way he hadn't since he was an optimistic eleven-year-old being soothed by his reflection in Madam Malkin's mirror. But where that darkness went, Draco could not be sure. He was trying to ignore the nagging of his conscience that as he was being unburdened of his black stains Harry was being poisoned by them, but it was getting harder and harder to do.

He'd never deluded himself into thinking he was good for Harry – he knew full well the opposite was true – but he _had_ deluded himself into thinking that he could ignore it and enjoy Harry anyway. He couldn't. He felt as though he were taking advantage of Harry, exploiting him somehow. Pleasure this acute had to be selfish – and it was. Harry didn't know how stained Draco really was, and if he did... well, Draco was certain that Harry never would have followed him to the Astronomy Tower, nor ever even kissed him in the first place. Draco knew he didn't and never would deserve Harry. Harry ought to know it too, but he didn't, and so every kiss to Draco felt stolen on false credit. They were the single most exquisite thing in Draco's life, but afterward they settled on Draco's conscience like bruises, like drops of poison. And yet he kept coming back for more.

He knew what he needed to do. He needed to end this. For Harry's own good he needed to end this. And to make sure there would never be a relapse – could never even be a chance of one – he needed to say whatever it would take to get Harry to let go. No matter how much it would make Draco sick to say it, he needed to say anything he could to poison even the memories Harry had of their time together so that he would never once look back.

He needed to, but he couldn't.

It was Harry's fault, Draco was reminded as Harry pulled out of their kiss to blink up into Draco's face. It was Harry's fault, because when Harry kissed him like he did and looked at him like that – skin flushed, lips pouty from their kisses, eyes luminescent and soft but acutely focused on Draco, just Draco – Draco felt like the only boy in the world, and it was all too easy for Draco's closet romantic to emerge, singing ballads and waxing poetic and sounding awfully like that damned bard.

Okay, it was possible that Draco might have gone back to Madam Pince. And it was possible that she had asked him how he'd liked the play and that he'd – in a moment of whim – confessed that he had. And it was possible that she had sent him away with a proud bibliophiliac sigh and a copy of Shakespeare's complete sonnets. And it was possible that those sonnets may have fueled a growing warmth in Draco's chest fixated on a certain boy hero. All that was possible. That didn't mean it was commendable.

It was Harry's fault, because he was Harry bleeding Potter, and if Draco were honest with himself it wasn't Harry he would have to convince to let go – it was himself.

They were in a broom cupboard Draco had charmed to be more spacious, in an all-but-abandoned corridor in the Divination wing where only Trelawney and her disciples wandered. The scent of wood and recent magic and something else fresh and vaguely sweet he thought must be Harry's shampoo filled Draco's nostrils. Draco could feel the rough surface of the cupboard's unpolished inside wall solidly supporting his back, but without Harry's arms holding him so snugly he was sure he would have slipped to the floor. Harry's lips had slid away from Draco's, across Draco's cheek and over to his ear and were now sucking gently on Draco's earlobe – something that a week ago Draco would have said sounded barmy and fetish-like and even unpleasant, but which he now knew was capable of sending bone-melting sparks down his spine so that he fairly sagged in Harry's firm arms.

A small "Mm..." vibrated in his chest. Draco lifted a hand to grasp Harry's face and forcibly turn it back to his so that he could kiss the deplorably tousle-haired Gryffindor properly – long and open-mouthed until he felt Harry's grip tighten on Draco's robes and his breath quicken in his chest. Draco pulled back and leaned his head against the wall, eyes closed and lips curled in a satisfied sort of soft smirk, simply taking a moment to revel in the moment – he, Draco Malfoy, nestled in a cupboard with Harry Born-To-Snog Potter.

When Draco opened his eyes, he found himself looking into a face that was far too solemn for his liking. Harry's skin was flushed and his lips were red, but his eyes were angled downward and the skin between his brows was wrinkled. He looked nervous. It made Draco want to capture Harry's lips with his again to kiss away the expression that was deflating Draco's buoyancy and making his conscience kick in early. Instead, Draco found himself staring at Harry with a sense of unease squirming its way into his happiness and no idea what to say.

"Have you..." Harry began, eyes still downcast and voice uncertain. "Have you... told anyone? About us?" Finally he raised his eyes to Draco's and immediately Draco wished he hadn't, because they were a mixture of wariness and a deprecating hope that made the unease twinge in Draco's stomach.

"No," he said abruptly, his voice sharper than he intended with a sudden stirring of panic. "Of course not." He waited for Harry to say something more, but he didn't. He merely cast his eyes back down and flattened the line of his sealed lips. Stomach clenching, Draco added, "Have you?"

Harry didn't move.

"Have you?" Draco repeated, too loud and forceful for the small cupboard.

Harry bit his lip as if trying to hold something in, then the words, "I told Ginny," tumbled out. His eyes flicked upward to Draco's face and went stricken at what it evidently saw there and he added, "Just her!"

Draco's pulse was fluttering, and not in a good way. He felt slightly winded, as if Harry had struck him with a fist rather than a string of words. "Why?" he choked out, not quite fathoming his own panic. "Why would you tell?"

"Because she already knew something was going on between us, with your flirting in Potions and our fight and all – Ginny, she's keener than I know you think she is. She was going to figure it out soon anyway," Harry said, talking fast as Draco had noticed he tended to do when he was uncomfortable. Far from placating Draco, this aggravated his unease. If the youngest Weasley could work it out, who would succeed next? "Besides, she's my best friend," Harry continued with an almost tangible fondness. This, too, only compounded Draco's mounting stress. Something worryingly similar to jealousy constricted in the vicinity of his heart. "She was the first one to know about me being... well," he cleared his throat, "you know. I tell her everything."

"That's all very well, Potter," Draco snapped with an anger that was the only translation of anxiety he'd learned to express, "until she tells half the school."

"She wouldn't," Harry asserted.

"How do you know?" Draco asked, his voice strained.

"Because I trust her." Harry looked directly into Draco's eyes, his features set determinedly. Draco looked back wordlessly for moment in which it felt as though neither of them even breathed. Harry was the first to speak, and Draco fancied he could actually feel his words piercing the invisible membrane of the moment their gaze had wrapped them in. "Anyway," he said, "I don't see why it matters. It doesn't change anything between us."

Draco shook his head. "It changes everything," he said quietly.

Harry's expression wavered toward uncertainty again. It was his turn to ask, "Why?"

"What do you want from this?" Draco asked before he could think better of it. "Because if it's still just about 'now' then anyone finding out will put an end to it. I swear, it's like you forget who you are sometimes. As soon as people get wind that Harry Potter has a thing with Draco Malfoy, whether they believe it's more than just a rumor or not, do you really think we'll be able to carry on like this anymore? The minute other people know, everything we say to each other will be watched and gossiped about, and this will immediately become serious with or without our consent. Is that what you want?" Draco hadn't meant to say so much, but once he'd started the words had kept spilling out with an earnestness he couldn't control.

Harry's eyes probed into Draco's as if they were looking for the answer there. Draco listened to the sound of his heart pounding, which was the loudest thing he could hear in the silence following his outburst. He hardly knew which he feared more – Harry saying yes, or Harry saying no.

Draco's pulse seemed to increase in decibel with each heartbeat, and by the time Harry spoke it seemed to Draco to be measuring the passing of time in the cupboard as audibly as the ticking of a clock.

"I – I..." Harry began, each "I" stepping forward to the edge of some unknown cliff before retreating again without jumping. In the next pause Draco's heart beat so heavily it was more of a dull ache than a pulse. Then Harry swallowed, and in so doing seemed to swallow whatever it was he was struggling to say. "I don't know," he finished.

Draco's heart sank. The masochist in him had pinned its life on the hope that Harry would say something else. "If – if it came down to going public or breaking it off, which would you rather?" Draco asked, his heart in his throat. Unconsciously, he reached out and tightened his fingers around a handful of Harry's robes.

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again. Try as he might, Draco couldn't read his eyes. They were layered and impenetrable. "Which would you rather?" Harry countered.

This was it. This was the moment for Draco to speak, when he needed to finally say what he should have said from the start, what he shouldn't have had to say if he hadn't thought his practiced stoicism invincible and let things become so advanced in the first place. Draco's clenched stomach churned and he felt like if he opened his mouth he might be sick instead of speaking. His grip on Harry's robes tightened. He tried to swallow against his the cramping of his throat around his heart – it shouldn't be there anyway. He was a fool to have let his heart out of its cage – and to Harry Potter, of all people! His father had been right all along – he allowed sentiment and fancy to penetrate his composure and make him weak, just as he'd been condemned for doing as a child desperate for friendship.

"I would rather break it off," he choked out.

Hurt flickered in the depths of Harry's eyes – or maybe Draco only wanted to see it there. Draco's eyes appealed earnestly to Harry's, trying to say with them what he couldn't say outloud – that more than anything he wanted to have been able to say the opposite, that losing Harry would be losing the last flicker of light in his otherwise dark existence. But Harry's expression closed itself off like a slammed door, and if he saw anything redeeming in Draco's he didn't let on. His arms fell from Draco's waist, then he turned out of Draco's grasp and pushed open the door of the cupboard to go without another word. Draco's throat clenched tighter as Harry left, as though were a cord tied around it which Harry held that was constricting the farther away Harry pulled it, until breathing seemed a strangled effort and Draco realized he was crying.

"Harry," Draco whispered hoarsely once it was too late. The door of the cupboard didn't close properly behind Harry and continued to creak and sway in the draft in after he'd gone.

Five minutes ago Harry had been kissing him as if his lips bore the Elixir of Life, and now he was gone. How had it all gone to shit so quickly? Draco sank to the floor of the cupboard and buried his face in his hands and tried to remember what it was like to be impenetrable and composed. He tried for a long time, but the best he could do was force his tears to stop. There would be no restoring the patented Malfoy stoicism until he forgot the name Harry Potter, and he knew full well that would never happen. At least this way Harry could forget the name Draco Malfoy, as selfishly and bitterly as Draco wished he wouldn't want to.

Appropriately timed, the friar's warning to Romeo rang in Draco's ears: _"These violent delights have violent ends . . ." _In the end, it was no more than Draco deserved. He'd never dared to expect Harry to care for Draco the way Draco did him. According to the guidelines Draco himself had agreed to, what happened between them had always been confined to moments, and who would fight for something as trivial and transient as that?

… & …

Ron was sulking. The rest of the weekend had passed and he hadn't made any progress in finding the student who was wandering around Hogwarts with the second black quill. He'd kept his eyes open the rest of Saturday, but as Hermione had kept him all but chained to a desk in the library, he hadn't exactly been able to snoop with the freedom he'd have liked. Sundays as a rule found most Gryffindors spending time lounging together in the common room. So since Ron knew he wouldn't have been able to sneak out without being interrogated, he'd spent the time continuing his campaign to single-handedly defeat the entire first-year class in Wizard's chess.

Monday morning had seen him waking up in foul Monday-morning spirits and no new ideas. He'd kept alert and on the lookout during his classes, but there were no black-feathered quills to be seen – except Draco Malfoy's, which he'd glowered at all through Arithmancy, taunting him as it swooped elegantly along Malfoy's parchment.

To be honest, he was stumped. He never had been any good at snooping around. In the days of their various encounters with Voldemort, he had always been better at tagging along and providing moral support than actually being much help uncovering Voldemort's plots.

Now it was Tuesday evening, and he wasn't any closer to the identity of the quill owner than he had been Saturday morning. On top of it all, it was raining. Most of the house was cooped up the common room together, filling the air with the sighs of rainy day discontent. Ron was no exception.

Ron glanced over at Hermione, whose nose was as ever tucked between the pages of a book. He could ask her for help and have the whole mystery solved in a day, he knew. But he was constantly going to her for help with anything involving extended thought processes, and frankly, it got a bit degrading after a while. He wanted to solve something for himself, for once. Then afterwards he could tell her about it and impress her with his bought of cleverness. Yes. That was an excellent plan. Now, how to go about achieving it?

Harry, who was sitting next to him, sighed heavily, reminding Ron of his presence. If only he could just _ask_ Harry. It would be so simple. But if Harry was sneaking around, it was obviously someone he wanted to keep secret. Why, though? Were they embarrassing somehow? Maybe they were a Hufflepuff after all! That would certainly be embarrassing. Or... oh – oh! Maybe the problem is that they were a _girl_ and Harry was embarrassed to have made a mistake about being gay! It was beside the point, though, really, because he _couldn't_ ask Harry.

Well, he lamented, he would just have to resign himself to continuing his surveillance of his fellow students until he thought of a better plan. Maybe the quill owner just hadn't felt like using it the last few days?

Harry sighed again. Ron glanced at his friend and sighed too, in commiseration. Hermione looked up.

"What's gotten into you two lately?" she said with some exasperation, setting the ancient, heavy book she'd been reading down in her lap. She looked back and forth between Ron and Harry's identical aggrieved expressions. "Harry's been brooding all weekend, and Ron – I haven't seen you this glum since the Chudley Canons lost the Cup last year. What's the matter?"

"Ha ha," said Ron by way of reply. Harry didn't even bother looking up.

"Honestly," she said. "What's wrong with you two? Ron?"

"Why me?" he whined. He was an awful liar. Distracting Hermione from her own question was his only chance at evading an answer. "Why don't you ask what's the matter with Harry?"

"Because I know he won't tell me until he's ready," Hermione said matter-of-factly, as if Harry weren't sitting two feet from her. And indeed, from all the reaction she was getting out of him, he may as well have been in another wing of the castle entirely.

"What makes you think I will?" Ron said childishly. He was stumped and out of sorts and in no mood for the heart to heart Hermione didn't realize was uncalled for.

She looked at him sternly.

"Bugger," he muttered.

Hermione pursed her lips.

"Nothing's wrong," he griped.

"Ronald..."

"Really!" he protested. "It's prolly just the weather. We were s'posed to have Quidditch today and instead I'm stuck doing homework. Again. It's a tragedy."

Hermione rolled her eyes and gave him a suspicious look, but didn't ask any more questions. Before turning back to her book, however, she fixed Harry with a probing gaze that would have made Ron uncomfortable. Harry didn't even seem to notice.

… & …

Nearly a week had passed since Harry had left Draco in the cupboard. When he'd left, it had only been to seek some space to sort out the turmoil Draco's response had sent his emotions into. He hadn't meant it to be a gesture of termination between them, but that's what it had ended up being. He had hardly even spoken to Draco since last Saturday, much less met him in any dark corners or abandoned corridors. He hadn't done much sleeping or eating, either, or much of anything that didn't involve spinning incoherent webs of thought around Draco Malfoy.

He missed him. Damn him to hell, but he missed Draco fucking Malfoy.

Harry didn't want to miss him. He wanted to be angry. Angry that Draco had hurt him. Angry that he'd made Harry care enough to be hurt in the first place. And Harry had been angry – at first. But the thing was, he _did _care now – that damage was done. And that caring made it much easier to miss Draco than be angry with him.

He knew he had had solid, legitimate reasons for walking out of the cupboard. Despite what he'd said to get Draco to snog him at first, Ginny had reminded him that he didn't just want to be someone's secret. He wanted to be someone's boyfriend. And if Draco was ashamed of him, or just downright didn't feel strongly enough about him to want that – well, Harry wasn't going to sell himself short just for a few minutes of glorious snogging a day. He had more dignity than that. (He did. Right? Right?) He was the Chosen One, dammit! He would not be reduced to a morose mess because a sodding _Malfoy _didn't want to be his boyfriend. (God, what had he come to?)

He had these reasons, and when he was rational he knew his reasoning was sound. But it was hard to be rational when one was suffering withdrawal. His solid, legitimate reasoning was melting under the heat he felt every time he caught a glimpse of white-blonde hair or had an unconscious, vivid flashback of Draco's hot breath and warm lips against his skin. Of all the passions, anger was the most easily trumped.

By Friday, he was on the verge of a breaking point. He couldn't continue moping around in this state of lethargic sadness any longer; he had to act.

To placate his rational side, he told himself that it was only practical to want to seek a meeting with Draco. Walking out of a broom cupboard without a single parting word wasn't an end to anything, except maybe a janitorial shift. Their meetings had ended so abruptly and with so few words that it lacked all finality. It felt to Harry like a window that had been left open, through which he could still feel a draft. Maybe he didn't owe Draco an explanation, but he owed himself one.

At dinner on Friday, Draco was on Harry's mind as he picked at his chicken pot pie. He was thinking about how just the Friday before he and Draco had met eyes across the Hall and Draco had smiled the slow, seductive, secret smile at him that had made it feel like they were the only two people in the room. And now... well, now Harry wasn't sure what Draco was doing, because he had hardly dared look directly at Draco all week. Once he realized this, though, he couldn't push it from his mind. Suddenly he had to see Draco – properly see him, that is, not out of the corner of his eye.

Harry casually lifted his head – trying not to attract the attention of either Ginny or Hermione who were both paying entirely too much attention to him lately – and turned it toward the Slytherins. What he saw shocked him. Draco was sitting still, a frozen figure in the midst of the swarm of people in motion around him, eating and talking and laughing. He was staring down at his plate as if it were his sole lifeline. He wasn't eating a thing; his hands were in his lap. He looked lost.

Seeing Draco like that, a conviction settled in Harry's bones. He would see Draco. He would talk to him.

When he got back from dinner, Harry rushed to his dorm and scribbled a quick note on a scrap of parchment:

_Meet me. 10 o'clock. Where I found you last time._

_H_

He folded it up, gave it to Ron's owl, and opened the window. The owl leapt out and disappeared into the darkening navy-blue evening sky.

Then Harry sat down on his bed to wait.


	17. Conflict and Resolution

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN **

**Conflict and Resolution**

"_But, commonly, men are as much afraid of love as of hate." - Henry David Thoreau_

Ginny watched from the front steps of the castle as a lone owl descended through the late evening darkness to a shadowy form standing by the edge of the lake, distinguishable only by the hair that glowed softly like a reflection of moonlight on water. She waited until the person had accepted the owl's offering and the owl had flown away before she approached them from behind, her footsteps absorbed by the thick grass of the lawn.

"Draco Malfoy," she said, her quiet voice clear in the nighttime stillness, "we need to talk."

… & …

Ron's owl returned a few minutes later, empty-beaked.

"Nothing?" Harry asked of it as he opened the window to let it in. "Nothing at all?"

The bird flew in and landed on his footboard, putting Harry in the peculiar position of being at eye-level with its unnervingly human-like eyes. The owl cocked its head.

"How did he react? Can you tell me that at least? Was he pleased? Upset? He did read it, didn't he? Do you think he'll come?"

The owl merely ruffled its feathers and shifted on its perch, looking at Harry disdainfully.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm not barmy, even I am talking to an owl. It's a perfectly reasonable question! Er, questions. Come on, I'll take anything! He must've reacted somehow!" Harry pleaded.

The bird bent its beak to pick at the underside of its wing.

"Oh, you're no use at all," Harry said. "Hedwig would have had some hint for me."

At this, the owl lunged and nipped Harry's hand with its beak – hard.

"Ow!" Harry exclaimed. "Blast! That hurt!" He lifted his hand to his lips to nurse the throbbing red welt that was breaking out across his injured skin.

The owl gave Harry what he interpreted as a supercilious glare, then took off again and fled out the still-open window. Harry closed it behind the bird, muttering, "Ruddy touchy owl..."

… & …

At the sound of his name, Draco turned around to find that the last person he'd ever expect to be snuck up on by had, in fact, snuck up on him.

"Ginny Weasley?" It was perhaps ironic that, being the former darling of Slytherin house (out-of-favor though he now was) and an extremely practiced sneaker in his own right, Draco Malfoy was deplorably easily flustered whenever the tables were turned.

"The one and only," she quipped.

Draco put a hand to his hair self-consciously, feeling suddenly very conspicuous in the dark despite his all-black ensemble. Against all reason, the Weasley's hair was actually less ostentatious in the current setting than his own. Draco felt like he was standing in a spotlight whilst the shadows around Ginny became even murkier in contrast.

"How can I help you?" he asked, not knowing what else to say and feeling increasingly unnerved by the unwavering appraisal of eyes that were every bit as keen as Granger's.

"Oh, I don't think you can," she said. "But I didn't come here to ask for favors for myself."

"I see," he said, though it was far from the truth. He was having trouble processing the pairing of the concepts "Weasley" and "covert encounter." It was clear that Ginny Weasley had little in common with her older brother. "Perhaps we could move somewhere a bit more... concealed?" he suggested.

Ginny nodded and indicated a stand of trees a little ways down the shoreline. They came to a stop in the shadow of an ancient oak and Ginny turned to face him, her face expression brazen.

"I don't care to linger in dark corners of the grounds with you all night, Malfoy," she said. "So I'll get straight to the point. I assume you've heard that I am, ah, _aware _of your situation with my best friend." She waited for him to nod faintly before she continued. "Therefore you may have concluded that I have, naturally, formed certain opinions on the matter." _Oh, so it was one of these meetings_, Draco realized, perhaps later than he ought to have. Rivulets of discomfort began to trickle into his stomach, but he schooled his expression to remain impassive. "What may surprise you, however, is what those opinions are, exactly."

Draco cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter what they are," he said coolly. "As it is a matter that exists solely between me and Harry and does not in any way include you."

"I beg to differ. Anything concerning Harry's happiness includes me. That's how friendship works. Of course, you probably don't know that, so I'll cut you some slack for the oversight. Just this once." This Ginny Weasley was sharp-tongued, Draco had to concede. Entirely too sharp-tongued. Conversing with a Weasley – even at this unusual hour – should not require Draco to be so on edge.

"Let's have it then. What does Ginny Weasley, former flame and lifelong devotee to the Chosen One, have to say to me?"

Ginny glowered at him. "Harry is under the impression that you do not care for him," she stated. "But, despite what a massive prat you're being right now, I disagree with him. Harry's too caught up in his own feelings and insecurities to think rationally about what's been going on between you two."

"Luckily he has you to think for him," Draco interjected, for the sake of feeling like he had some semblance of sway left in the conversation, but his mouth was dry as he said it.

Ginny silenced him with a disdainful look. Draco crossed his arms over his chest. "Lucky he does," she continued. "Because unlike Harry I have not forgotten what being a Malfoy means about your actions. Which is to say that you have been trained never to act lightly or on whims. You only take great risks at the chance of even greater rewards. So despite what you've led Harry to believe, I know that you are not without feelings for him – probably bloody strong ones, at that."

Draco opened his mouth to deny it; to inform her that she was a Weasley and Gryffindor and had no idea what she was talking about; to put her back in her place. But before the words could take form on his tongue, she held up a hand.

"No. I'm not finished," she admonished. "I know that Malfoy's make careful decisions," she restated, "and I know that they are cowards." Draco's arms tightened around himself and he told himself it was due to the chill of the night air. "But I also know that you are not the Malfoy your father was. So what I've come to tell you is this: Don't you dare be a coward."

Ginny fixed him with one last long, stern glare. And with that, she turned on her heels and made her way back up towards the castle. Draco made no move to stop her. He had nothing to say for himself. Instead, he remained in the shadow of the old oak tree for some time, feeling goosebumps rise on his arms and fingering a small scrap of parchment in the pocket of his robe.

… & …

By 9:45 Harry still hadn't received a reply. He didn't know what to think, whether that meant 'Yes' or 'No' or 'No comment.' He didn't know if Malfoy would show up ready to reconcile or ready to reject him with a coldness usually reserved for dungeons and hateful Potions professors. Or if he would show up at all.

Nonetheless, at ten 'til ten Harry wrapped himself in his invisibility cloak and made his way to the Astronomy Tower. He paused at the top of the steps, gathering himself before taking a deep breath and stepping out onto the exposed platform at the top of the tower.

It was empty.

He looked at his watch. It was 10:01. One minute could hardly be considered late, he allowed. One minute didn't mean someone wasn't coming. He leaned against the wall to wait.

At 10:08 he began to pace.

At 10:11 he wondered what the threshold was between late and rejection.

At 10:15 he ceased his pacing and sank to the ground with his back to the wall, bracing his elbows against his knees and putting his head in his hands. He look a deep breath and told himself not to cry. He decided he should have known that no reply meant bad news. He told himself he shouldn't be surprised.

It didn't work. He was surprised; he was stung; he was hurt; he wanted to cry. He pressed his hands against his eyes and was glad he was alone so he didn't have to hide.

At 10:17 he heard a rustle in the darkness. He looked up. Draco stepped out from the shadows at the top of the stairs. Harry rubbed his hands across his face to clear it and stood up hastily.

"You came," he said, when it became clear that Draco had no plans to speak first.

"I wasn't going to."

"But you did."

Draco nodded.

"Why?"

Draco looked at his feet and ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't want you to leave," he told the ground. "That's not... it's not what I meant to..."

"I didn't mean to leave," said Harry. "That is, I didn't mean for it to mean what it did. I didn't want to leave you, us..." he gestured awkwardly. "I just needed to clear my head and you – you're not very conducive to clear thoughts."

Draco gave a dry laugh. "I could say the same to you."

"You could?" Harry cursed his voice for sounding so vulnerable.

Draco looked up then, and for the first time that night looked Harry in the eyes. He took a step toward Harry. "I don't want to give you up," he said, his voice ragged.

Harry swallowed around something thick clogging his throat – maybe his heart. "Then why did you say what you did?"

Draco's steps faltered and his eyes fell to the stones beneath their feet once more. "I..." he trailed off. Then he took a deep breath that Harry both heard and saw as Draco's chest rose and fell. "I was scared," he confessed.

"Of what?"

"Of the choice between giving you up and losing you."

"What would make you think those are your only two choices?" Harry's heart had retreated back to its proper position in his chest and was now beating heavily as if gasping for air.

Draco shook his head with a rueful half-smile on his lips, as if in response to some comment only he had heard. "I guess I'm not used to having a choice at all when it comes to you," he said.

Harry watched Draco in a semi-anguished, hopeful, mute commotion. He wanted to tell Draco that he wasn't sure what he meant but that as far as Harry was concerned there was only one choice, but he couldn't speak. He wanted to go to Draco and wrap his arms around him and press his face into Draco's neck, but he couldn't move.

Draco moved forward with a graceful sort of mesmerized purpose until he was standing right in front of Harry, an inch of unspoken words and unvoiced concerns between them. His eyes searched Harry's then dipped down to his lips, which tingled under Draco's gaze as if under the barest touch of a fingertip.

Harry found his voice. "Draco, I –"

Draco lifted a hand to cover Harry's mouth. "No, don't say anything," he whispered. "Please. This is hard enough as it is."

Harry looked into Draco's eyes – cast into shadow as the moon moved behind the tower – without blinking. Then he nodded. Draco removed his hand. And he replaced it with his mouth.

If he'd been capable of thinking about it just then, Harry might've been ashamed that the first touch of Draco's lips against his after a week without evoked a small whimper from his throat. As it was, the whimper was supplanted by Harry curling his fingers into the hair at the nape of Draco's neck and opening his mouth against Draco's, then forgotten altogether when the action pulled an echoing noise from Draco. Draco wrapped his arms around Harry's waist and pulled him close, kissing him deeply and leisurely as if nothing else in the world could be thought of or taken care of until he'd kissed Harry as thoroughly as possible, making sure he felt it all the way to his toes.

At some point they parted and Harry buried his face in the surprisingly soft curve between Draco's shoulder and neck, hugging Draco tightly and closing his eyes, savoring the rise and fall of Draco's chest against his and pretending he would never have to move.

… & …

Almost two weeks had passed since Ron first caught Harry mid-invisible-snog and picked up on the clue of the black-feathered quill, and in that time all he'd managed to do was receive a cocked eyebrow from Malfoy when he was caught scowling at the Slytherin's quill, countless odd looks from classmates he'd been – covertly! – ogling in the name of his investigation, and a sharp reprimand from McGonagall for having been paying more attention to his speculations than to her lecture.

In short, he'd gotten nowhere. And truth be told, he was starting to give up. He'd made no progress, and all he'd gotten for his troubles was embarrassment and frustration. And for what? Harry would tell him eventually – either for a laugh over a ridiculous fling or, if it was more serious, whenever he was ready. He would. Ron was his best mate.

In the meantime, Ron had other things to keep him occupied. Like classes. And his girlfriend. And telling Harry how the Ravenclaw captain had planted 'Nancy Boy' (an ingenious product of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes that turned the consumer into a raging flamer) into the Hufflepuff Seeker's morning pumpkin juice. The effects were temporary, but the Seeker would still be unfit to engage in high-contact sports for another week yet and therefore Hufflepuff was having to scramble for a last-minute replacement – who would surely be shite, guaranteeing Ravenclaw the victory and therefore slating them to play against Gryffindor the following weekend.

It was this that he was headed to do right now. Ginny had tipped him off that she'd last seen Harry studying in the library, so to the library he was going.

Ron stepped into the library with a sigh – he'd spend far too much time here for his liking recently. These were the last weeks of decent weather they'd have until spring, and he didn't want to spend them cooped up with a bunch of dodgy old books. Such was the price of dating a prize student, he decided as he scanned the room. But one of Hermione's smiles was worth every minute he spent studying for the sake of her piece of mind.

He spotted Harry working alone at a table toward the back and began to head towards him. But before he could take more than a couple of steps, Harry was waylaid by someone else. Someone else of tall stature and blond hair and... bloody hell – Malfoy! Indignation – always on a low simmer where Malfoy was concerned – rose to boil. How dare Malfoy approach Harry! Ron drew himself up with the blustering umbrage born of long-suffering and bitterness and began advancing on the table, angry words frothing on his tongue. He was going to tell Malfoy to sod off, he was. He was going to...

Suddenly, and in full view of Ron's anger-sharpened eyes, Harry broke into a grin, beaming up at the slimy git known as Draco Malfoy. Malfoy himself was looking back at Harry with the most peculiar expression – on anyone else Ron might have called it a shy smile. As Ron watched, dumbstruck, Harry blushed and looked down at his hands, then back up at Malfoy, nodding in response to something Malfoy said. Malfoy looked pleased.

In that instant, Ron felt like he'd been struck by lightning. And not in the good way, of epiphany and sudden understanding – though there was plenty of that, too – but in the bad way. Black spots sprung up across his vision and there was a rush of heat to his nervous system that seared and burned and coursed through his body.

There was no second black quill. The investigation was over, but Ron felt no sense of victory – only the sick clench of the glaringly and disturbingly obvious.

Goddammit, he was going to _kill_ Malfoy.

Ron stormed over to Harry's table in a haze of rage and confusion – _Draco Malfoy? _How _could _he_? _ Ron wasn't even clear which 'he' he was referring to. He wasn't at all sure who he was more incensed with – Harry or Malfoy – and at the moment, he didn't care.

When he reached the table Ron grabbed Malfoy by the shoulder and spun him around. "You bastard!" he fumed, feeling as if a tea kettle were screeching in his brain.

Malfoy stared at him in an agape horror that did nothing to allay Ron's fury as it might have done under different circumstances.

"Ron –" said Harry, standing up and reaching over to place a restraining hand on Ron's arm. Ron shrugged him off without looking at him, all his focus fixated on Malfoy.

"You sodding arse. You complete, massive prick. You utter, despicable, slimy wanker. You – you –" Ron's eyes narrowed. "You manipulative faggot."

The temperature of Malfoy's expression seemed to drop several degrees with each insult Ron unleashed on him, such that his infallible composure was restored by the time Ron finished. "As much as I enjoy being regaled with your colorful yet rather limited vocabulary, Weasley," he said coldly, "to what do I owe this honor?"

"You know exactly 'to what you owe this honor' you vile piece of scum. How dare you disgrace Harry with your company? How dare you presume to think you deserve Harry's attention? How _dare_ you?"

Malfoy's expression hit absolute zero at this, and he stared at Ron with a pinched, icy sangfroid that suggested any further attempts to provoke him would be about as fruitful as throwing darts at a ghost. That didn't man Ron wasn't going to try.

"Well?" Ron demanded. "What do you have to say for yourself? Huh? Huh?" He glared at Malfoy with a hot defiance radiating from his cheeks to the tips of his fittingly flame-colored hair. When Malfoy didn't deign to respond, Ron raised his voice to say, "Answer me, you snake! Answer me!" When that too failed to elicit a response, Ron lunged forward and shoved Malfoy square in the chest. Malfoy staggered back and caught himself against the edge of the table.

"Ron!" Harry said sharply from beside him. Ron had actually managed to forget Harry was there, but was reminded as Harry took hold of Ron's upper arm in a grip so tight it was painful. "Calm down."

"No I will not bloody well calm down!" Ron cried. "I can't believe you let him –" Ron was going to say, 'I can't believe you let him seduce you,' but before he could finish Harry's other hand was clamped across his mouth and he was being steered roughly out of the library and away from his target.

"Geroff me!" he demanded, struggling in vain against his friend's rigid hold. "Lemme go!"

Then, just as suddenly as he'd been seized, he was let go and sent careening into the corridor outside the library.

"Are you mental?" Harry demanded angrily.

"Am I mental? Am _I _mental?"

"You can't go around starting fights in the library!" Harry exclaimed. "Have you lost your mind?"

"No, I haven't lost my bloody mind," Ron growled. "Of the two of us, I'm the only one who's not shagging –" Harry lunged forward and again clamped his hand over Ron's mouth.

"Shut. Up," he swore under his breath. "What are thinking going around shouting that –"

Ron wrestled his mouth free of Harry's hand. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to get off with _him,"_ he hissed.

He pulled roughly away from Harry's grip and took two steps away. They glowered at each other, faces flushed with resentment. Ron's blood ran hot beneath his skin and rushed him past the point of all thought, coherent or otherwise.

"How," he said, advancing on Harry, "could you?" He accented his question with a series of shoves that sent Harry backwards a step for each bit of ground Ron gained.

"I haven't done anything wrong!" Harry asserted.

"You've betrayed me," Ron spat. "You've betrayed everything you stand for – and for what? A few desperate gropes? Well I hope they were good. I hope they were worth it."

Harry's face darkened dangerously. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about," he swore. Then he shoved Ron back squarely in the chest and Ron exploded.

His fists went everywhere in a rush of rage so potent that it was no longer Harry he was fighting but the situation itself. Each punch was a punch to an alliance he couldn't understand, each blow a blow against the worst secret Harry had ever kept from him. Harry wasn't Harry but rather a receptacle for Ron's underlying resentment at every adversity he'd encountered as a result of things beyond his control – the money his family never had, the innate power and status Malfoy – and even Harry, Ron recognized with another stab of regret – did, the effortless success born of individual talents it seemed everyone he knew had except him.

At first Harry made to struggle against him, but after a moment went he still, leaving Ron to go at him unchecked and unbridled. It was several minutes before the haze of rage began to diffuse and the irrational heat began to cool and Ron realized that Harry was lying back and taking it, eyes closed, because he refused to fight his friend. The shame that followed that realization hit Ron with the accumulated force of all the blows Harry had withheld and he froze mid-swing. It was like coming to out of sleepwalk; he found himself sitting on his best friend's chest, fist raised and blinking into Harry's already swelling and discoloring face with only a blurry impression of how and why he had come to be there.

Before he could catch up with himself, a furious shrill voice rang out in the corridor.

"Ron Weasley," McGonagall declared, "kindly remove yourself from Harry Potter's person."

Ron obeyed in a daze. He climbed off Harry's prostrate body with stiff, ginger movements and backed away as if physical distance could distance himself from what he'd done. He felt more sympathetic to Ginny's experiences second year than ever before – the disorienting horror of witnessing the aftermath of actions you performed in a state beyond consciousness.

"Mr. Weasley," said McGonagall solemnly, "would you care to explain yourself?"

Ron simply stared at the form of his best mate on the floor before him, too aghast for words.

McGonagall surveyed him with a stern expression void of the warmth she usually saved for members of her own house. "Go to my office. I will be there to deal with you in a moment," she said by way of dismissal.

Ron nodded mutely and took a couple more jerky steps away from Harry. Then he paused and for the first time took note of his surroundings. McGonagall was watching his retreat with shrewd eyes, as was Madam Pince from her position in the entrance to the library where she was preventing the crowd of students within from flooding the corridor in a rush of chaos and curiosity. As for Harry – he remained on the floor, unmoved, his eyes still closed and his breathing shallow.

"Is he – is he going to be okay?" Ron croaked.

McGonagall's expression softened. "Madam Pomfrey's on her way. He'll be fine; he's recovered from far worse before, I imagine," she said. "Now, please. Go."

Again Ron nodded, backing up several more steps. "I'm sorry, Harry," he whispered, then wrenched his eyes from his friend and fled from the evidence of what he'd done.


	18. Sense and Sensibility

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN **

**Sense and Sensibility**

"_Every man is afraid of something. That's how you know he's in love with you; when he is afraid of losing you." - Unknown_

Ron Weasley sat alone in McGonagall's office, head bowed and staring at his hands. It was some time before he was joined by the Professor-turned-Headmistress herself. Even then, his posture didn't change. McGonagall entered and took her seat across from Ron without a word, and sat there observing him for several silent minutes. Usually, such silence would have had Ron squirming in his seat. But under the present circumstances, he hardly noticed it above the white noise of his buzzing thoughts.

"Mr. Weasley," McGonagall said at last, splitting the silence with her crisp voice. "I must say, when Madam Pince informed me a fight had broken out in the library corridor, I hardly expected to find you and Mr. Potter in the center of the fray!"

Ron nodded at his hands, his mouth sagging in a doleful frown.

"I have jumped to the conclusion – forgive me if I am wrong – that the matter at hand is of a personal nature between you and Mr. Potter. Your longstanding friendship assures me that this is no impulsive brawl between two over-easily provoked teenagers nor an occurrence that is likely to repeat itself. As such, I hesitate to pry. However, I am afraid that as Headmistress I cannot take such a significant breach of school conduct lightly. I am going to have to ask you to speak for yourself."

Ron cast his eyes up at McGonagall, beseeching and quailing under her stern gaze.

"I'm sorry Mr. Weasley, but this is how it's going to have to be."

Ron nodded his understanding and looked back down at his hands.

"Why did you attack Harry?" McGonagall asked.

Ron swallowed. "I can't say."

McGonagall was quiet for a moment. "I feared as much," she said. "You do know that if you don't provide an explanation I will be forced to proceed as though the attack was unprovoked and punish you accordingly."

"I know."

"And do you still refuse to explain yourself?"

"I can't tell you what happened," Ron said. His voice shook a little with nerves. Harry had always been much better at standing up to authority figures than he was. "It's between me and Harry and I can't tell you what it is. I'm sorry." He looked up, expecting her disapproval, and was surprised to find the flat line of her mouth had tweaked upwards – McGonagall's interpretation of an encouraging smile.

"You are one of the finest friends in Hogwarts, Mr. Weasley," she said. "I do believe I would be disappointed if you'd done anything less."

Ron blushed an unattractive shade of maroon and turned back to his hands, feeling nauseous.

"What about..." He cleared his throat. "Where's Harry?"

"Madam Pomfrey took him to the hospital wing. He's got a couple bruised ribs, a black eye setting in, and a broken nose, I believe, but you didn't do him any permanent damage."

"Oh. Good," Ron said. He was relieved to hear it, but it didn't take the edge off of the nausea sloshing in his stomach.

"Why don't you go back to Gryffindor for now," McGonagall suggested. "I will consider your punishment and contact you tomorrow."

Ron nodded one last time, then politely excused himself and left.

… & …

The light in Gryffindor common room turned poignant as the mid-afternoon sun peaked and began to wane towards evening. It slanted across Hermione's face, drawn tight with concern. She was sitting at a table by the windows, foot tapping and periodically flipping pages of the book in front of her with an impatient vehemence. She let out a huff of breath and flipped a particular page so sharply it tore a little – aggravating her further – when the portrait hole suddenly opened, admitting a shell-shocked and somewhat bewildered Ron. Hermione rose to her feet before she could think to do so.

When he reached her, she took Ron into her arms with a hum of concern. "Ron," she said. Then she said it again for good measure, because the sound of his name made her feel calmer, "Ron."

He buried his face in her hair and tightened his arms around her waist. At last she pulled away and surveyed him with keen eyes. A slight bruise was developing along his cheekbone and he was nursing a fat lip, but the most striking outward evidence of his recent altercation was the sag of his shoulders and the solemnity in his eyes.

She asked the inevitable question. "What happened? Charlie came back from the library earlier looking like he'd just seen Fluffy, and he said that you'd – you'd beaten up Harry. Is that true?" Hermione's chin wobbled in harmony with her voice.

Ron sagged into a chair and buried his face in his hands. Hermione sat down next to him and smoothed her fingers through his hair. "Is it true?" she asked again. "Ron, you can tell me if it is. You can always tell me."

"It's true," he said into his hands.

Hermione felt each beat of her pulse tap against the skin of her temples. She'd known already, really. Wild eyes were a harbinger of truth, almost incapable of deceit, and Charlie's eyes had been as wild as any she'd ever seen. Romance aside, Charlie cared about Harry in his quiet, unobtrusive way and was alarmed to see him hurt – by his best friend, of all people. She could sympathize. She was glad she hadn't been there herself. But she also knew, with a certainty that came of having loved him in many capacities for almost eight years, that Ron wouldn't have hurt Harry without powerful provocation.

"Ron," she said, taking his cheek in her hand turning his face towards her, "look at me."

He did. He looked at her with blue eyes sad and scared like early winter rain.

"Why? Why did you do it?"

Ron took a deep breath, as if the very ground beneath him were in turmoil and could be steadied if he inhaled with enough purpose. "The other day, when you had me confined to the library, I caught Harry snogging someone," he said.

"You did? Who?" Hermione interrupted.

"I didn't know. I couldn't actually see them." Hermione could tell Ron wanted to get back to his story, but she wasn't one to take details for granted.

"How do you know it was Harry then?"

"Who else could snog invisibly?"

"Oh. Of course. Alright – carry on."

"So. I caught Harry snogging someone, but I didn't know who it was. I thought I'd try to work it out for myself, so I did a bit of snooping, and I found – well, anyway. That's not important. The important thing is –"

"You found out who it was?" Hermione was being consumed by the onset of the infuriating sensation of having a word on the tip of her tongue, but instead of a word it was rather that her mind was teetering on the edge of an explanation she couldn't quite reach. She needed Ron to push her over that edge.

Ron's voice fell to a whisper and he seemed afraid of what would happen as a consequence of saying his next words too loudly. "Harry – he's with Malfoy," he confessed, with the desperation to be proven wrong of a man who knows it can't happen.

With that, the edge disappeared and Hermione fell headfirst into comprehension. Her mind was cleared by the wind that blew through it as she fell, and she found herself wanting to smile with the sheer relief of converting mystery into knowledge. "Oh," she said, stretching the vowel out as long as her exhalation. "Ohh..."

Ron gulped. "Oh?" he repeated. "At a time like this, that's all you can say – 'oh'?"

"It's just, it makes a certain amount of sense."

"Sense?" he repeated, his voice cracking as he began to get worked up again. "It doesn't make any bloody sense at all!"

"Ron, I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I don't understand it any more than you do. It doesn't make any rational sense at all. I only meant that when you consider how he and Ginny have been acting like they have some kind of secret, and how he wasn't interested in Charlie, and how he kept staring at Slytherin table... well, that all makes a strange sort of sense now."

Ron deflated again.

"So..." Hermione was still trying to piece together the whole story. "You figured this out just now, in the library?"

He nodded.

"And then you... attacked Harry?" she asked carefully, not quite seeing the transition.

"I didn't mean to," he said in an earnest undertone. "I was angry. I wanted to attack Malfoy. I wanted to kill him, if I could. But Harry got in my way and stopped me and took me outside and – I don't know. I don't know what happened. It was like my anger got turned inside out and I didn't even know what I was doing anymore. And then it was like I woke up, or something, and there was Harry beneath me, and I realized what I'd done, and – Oh, God, Hermione. Why do I always fuck up?" he moaned.

"It can't have been that bad a fight," she said, hoping to reassure him. "You're hardly hurt."

"I'm not," he said bitterly. "But Harry... he wouldn't fight me back!" His voice broke. "_The noble git wouldn't fight me back."_

"Oh, Ron..." Hermione murmured, lifting a hand to his cheek and gently stroking her thumb along the bruise there. He swatted her hand away and grimaced.

"Please." The word was simple and naked and uncharacteristic of Ron. He took her hand in his to apologize for brushing it away. "Please, I just... I need to be alone. It's... it's too... I can't..."

Hermione swallowed. Her throat was tight and it hurt to do. She nodded. "Okay," she said.

"I'm gonna go up to my dorm," he said.

Hermione watched him stand. His face was jaded and strained, the face of several days' stress rather than several hours. Her heart constricted to see him tormented by such remorse yet such unshakeable bitterness at once. He wanted to be the friend he thought Harry deserved, but he couldn't be anyone but himself – prone to impulse and passion, quick to act and slow to process or forgive. She knew how his falling outs with Harry plagued him, how he longed to atone for a moment's indiscretion but didn't know how. And this – this was more severe than most.

She hesitated a moment as he stepped away toward the staircase, then abruptly stood and caught him by the arm.

"He's in the hospital wing?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

Hermione nodded. "Okay." She leaned up and pressed an impulsive kiss to his cheek.

With one last wordlessly sad, fond look, he disappeared up the staircase.

Alone once more, Hermione's brows furrowed. As much sense as it made in the context of his recent behavior, Ron was right – Harry dating Malfoy made no real sense at all. Hermione didn't tolerate enigmas well. She needed to see Harry, and she needed to see him now.

… & …

Harry was staring at the ceiling. It was a familiar ceiling; he had been here many times before, though never before under conditions quite so fraught with personal upheaval.

Wood beams supported the vaulted arch of the hospital wing's ceiling. He noticed the spirals of thin lines decorating each beam and remembered that each ring on a tree's trunk represented one year of life. He began counting rings. Fifty-five on one. Seventy-two on another. The rings pulled Harry as far forward and backward into time as stars in the night sky. There were hundreds of years of life etched on those beams, maybe thousands. Right now, it felt like he'd lived half of them.

Harry's expectant ears picked up the sound of footsteps approaching the door to the hospital wing. His eyes sharpened. His heartbeat sped up. Hope made him suck in a breath. Maybe it was –

Madam Pomfrey bustled into the room. "Well, Mr. Potter, good news. A little Murtlap Essence and a few healing pastes and a good night's rest, and you'll be right as rain!" she informed him with the excess cheer that became habit for those who made a career out of breaking unwanted news to people. She began smearing a thick yellow paste across the tender bruises on Harry's face, then with an, "Arms up!" she pulled off his shirt and set to work on his abdomen. The paste sunk into his skin with the uncomfortable pressure of a finger pushing against his bruises, then washed a cool wave of relief over the ache. "If you ask me," she muttered, "they shoulda brought Mr. Weasley down here as well for some Calming Drought, but of course they never do, do they? Open up!"

"Has anyone come to – agh – see me?" Harry garbled as Madam Pomfrey forced a shot of bittersweet liquid, presumably the Murtlap Essence, down his throat.

"No, dear," she said, with a sympathetic pursing of her lips. "Not yet."

Harry gulped down the liquid. "Oh." He tried not to let his disappointment show. He didn't want hoards of classmates showing up to fawn over their poor injured hero, but _one_ visitor he wouldn't mind. One particular visitor he would gladly see.

"Perhaps your friends are waiting for you to get settled in," Madam Pomfrey suggested.

"Yeah," Harry agreed vacantly.

She made a clucking noise and appraised him maternally as she tucked him into roomy hospital robes. "Come now, pluck up. It's not so bad. I've certainly had you in here with worse! I remember when you were just a boy and you were in here after a Quidditch match... a rogue bludger, I think it was? Made quite a mess of you, I'll tell you that. At least you don't need to take a goblet of Skele-Gro this time, huh?" Harry stared at her skeptically. As far as bright sides went, it was rather dim. "You get some rest now, you hear? I'll be back to check on you later."

She left. There'd been no Quidditch matches recently, nor any particularly dangerous creatures faced in Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class, so Harry was alone in the hospital wing. He sank back into his pillows and sighed.

He'd known Ron wasn't going take he and Draco's relationship well, but the unforeseen element of surprise had made it twice as bad. Harry had hoped to break it to him gently – well, as gently as he could – perhaps starting with subtle suggestions and working his way towards straightforward honesty. Instead, Ron had found out for himself – Harry had no idea how – and Ron had outdone himself with the sheer magnitude of his eruption.

Harry didn't blame Ron for being upset. He didn't even blame Ron for attacking him. What troubled Harry was the precedent the method of Ron's finding out would set for his future acceptance. If Harry had had time to prepare him, to cushion the blow, Ron might've been able to come to terms with it more easily. As it was – explosive and sudden and smacking of betrayal – he wondered if Ron ever would. He doubted Ron would even deign to talk to him any time soon, much less consent to hear reason. Harry didn't want it to come down to a choice between mollifying Ron or enjoying Draco, but he feared it would, at least in Ron's eyes.

Draco. Where was he? Harry grew more anxious each minute Draco's blond head failed to emerge through the Hospital door. He needed Draco to come and tell him it was alright, that Ron's rage hadn't spooked him or scared him off. Draco didn't even need to say anything, if he would only just come. If Harry could only just _see_ him, that would be enough.

A second pattering of footsteps approached the door – a different rhythm from Madam Pomfrey's – and sent Harry's senses back onto alert. The small spike of adrenaline that accompanied them calmed, however, when a petite figure topped in bushy brown hair stepped tentatively into the room.

"Hermione," he said. He struggled to sit up and winced when the movement jostled his bruised ribs.

She took a seat next to his bed. She opened her mouth, shut it, thought, then opened it again. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Alright," he said.

She said nothing, just fiddled with her fingers in her lap, biting her lip.

"And you?" he asked, to relieve some of the anxiety her quiet was causing him.

"Oh, fine," she said.

There was another pause. Harry shrank into his sheets a little and wished he were alone again.

"I talked to Ron," she admitted at last. Harry grimaced. "He told me... about what happened."

"All of it?"

"Yes. All of it."

Harry let out a long breath. "Oh."

"Oh," Hermione agreed.

Harry squirmed under his covers and smoothed them out with his hands. "So..." he said.

"Is it true then?" she asked. "You're... seeing Malfoy?"

Harry bit his lip, then nodded.

"Hm." Hermione fixed him with her wise brown eyes. "I... I'm not sure what to say, Harry. I want you to be happy, I honestly do." She ducked her head.

Harry waited for the 'But...' It didn't take long.

"But did it have to be Draco Malfoy?" she burst forth. "Out of all the boys in the school, did it really have to be him?"

"It did," he said.

"How?" she asked.

"I... I can't really explain it. You know we're partners in Potions? Well, I got to see... other sides of him, I guess. He started flirting with me and I thought it was just a game – I think we both thought it was a game – but it wasn't, not really. And things just kind of... escalated. Hermione, I think I might l–" Harry cut off and blushed fiercely. "I think I might really like him," he finished.

Hermione looked thoroughly disconcerted. "I just don't understand," she said.

"Me neither," said Harry. His cheeks were hot, but he was absurdly tempted to giggle.

"I don't trust him, Harry. I'll believe you if you say he's different, but eight years of animosity... that's hard to overrule."

"I know."

"I just want what's best for you."

"i know."

"How can you be sure Malfoy's good for you?"

"I can't."

"Then how can you risk it? It's _Malfoy,_" she repeated, as if this might have escaped Harry's notice.

"I know it is." Harry was quiet for a moment. "When I first realized that I... liked him, believe me Hermione, I tried to talk myself out of it. I tried to deny it. I tried to remind myself of every foul thing he's done to us over the years. I said his name over and over in my mind every time I got carried away, to remind myself who I was dealing with."

"And?"

"And it didn't matter."

"How could it not matter?"

"Because... when you fall for someone, no amount of rationalization is going to undo it. It just is. Could you talk yourself out of loving Ron?"

"Yes," she said stubbornly, but her face betrayed her. "No," she amended. "But he's Ron! This is Malfoy!"

"It's no different," Harry protested. "Just because he's - I don't know - _riskier_ doesn't make it any more my choice. And honestly, if I had a choice, he probably wouldn't exactly be at the top of the list. But... it's him. There's no one else. Just him."

Hermione looked like she wanted to keep arguing, but she must have seen something in Harry that told her it would be pointless. "So... you really care about him?" She said it carefully, wanting it to be untrue, perhaps, but also wanting him to understand that if it was, she would support him.

"Yeah," he said. "I do."

"Alright then," she said, mostly to herself. To Harry she said, "I don't understand it, and I'm not sure I encourage it, but if it's what you want and it's what makes you happy... then I'll accept it."

Relieved, Harry let out in a sigh a surge of anxiety he hadn't quite realized he'd had trapped inside him. "Thanks, Hermione."

Hermione smiled weakly at him. "Ginny sends her love, by the way. You're only allowed two visitors, and since I really wanted to talk to you and we figured you'd already had one..."

"I haven't, actually. Had another visitor, I mean," Harry admitted to his covers.

"You haven't?"

"No. You're the first."

"Oh," she said quietly. "I'm sure he'll come, Harry. It's not so late. I'm sure he'll come."

Harry had been sure too, but he was beginning to have doubts. By the time Hermione left for dinner, those doubts had grown. Madam Pomfrey checked in on him once more, then she, too, left him alone for the night. Harry was aware of the hours after dinner passing on a minute to minute level. They faded into nighttime, lonely and disappointed. He fell asleep still waiting to hear the soft clicking of confident footsteps breaching the door to the hospital wing, a cadence that never came.

… & …

Draco Malfoy stood outside the hospital wing, a dark shadow in a dark corridor in the crest of the night's darkness. Hours of internal debate had culminated in him standing here – after hours – and now he couldn't bring himself to cross the threshold.

Harry was behind this door. Harry, who may have been expecting him to show up hours ago. Harry, who'd gotten beaten up by his best mate because of Draco. Harry, who deserved to have someone standing out here who would make things easier for him, not harder.

And yet.

And yet, it wasn't someone else standing out here. It was him, Draco. What did that mean? It meant he owed it to Harry to go in. Draco pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The room was awash in the ethereal dark beauty of midnight. Draco's eyes had long adjusted to the darkness – it had taken him over an hour through unlit corridors to traverse the ten minute walk from his room to here, so many times had he paused and almost reconsidered – so he was able to immediately identify the one bed whose bulky surface revealed its occupancy. Draco made his way over to this bed, lowering himself gingerly onto the chair beside it.

Harry was asleep. A veil of moonlight lay across his face, exposing the consequences of Weasley's angry fists that would normally have been concealed in the darkness. His skin was splotched a sickly, jaundiced yellow as bruises healed on fast-forward thanks to Madam Pomfrey's handiwork. The skin around his left eye was darker – it had been bruised more severely and was healing more slowly. His mouth was puffy and pink where a split lip was healing, and his lips were parted in the vulnerable unawareness of sleep. Clumps of hair, sweaty from the fever his rapid healing had induced, clung to his forehead.

Draco watched Harry's chest rise and fall and was struck by how essential that rhythm was to him now. What would become of him should it ever cease? He knew the answer to that. Harry was the one force left coaxing him forward in life. Without Harry, who would notice if he slipped away, disappeared? He knew the answer to that, too – nobody.

Draco's eyes felt full as he looked at Harry, so he bowed his head. If he were some other person, if he were anyone else... Someday someone worthy would take their rightful place in Harry's heart, and Draco would loathe them for it, but he would not fight them. He knew it would be for the best, for Harry's best. An icon like Harry could never tie himself to disgrace like Draco Malfoy, and the sooner Harry learned that, the better.

These fears were only fractionally responsible for keeping Draco away all day. What had really gnawed at him was the the question of how Harry's feelings toward Draco might have changed. After what had happened today, surely Harry must finally see how bad Draco was for him. Draco didn't know how this had managed to escape Harry before, but there was no way it could have still now. And once he knew... well, no sane person would willingly subject themselves to that. Not even for the sake of love, and certainly not for Draco's sorry offering.

To be honest, the real reason Draco had put off this visit until the middle of the night was that he was scared of what he would see in Harry's face the next time Harry looked at him. He knew that the best thing for Harry – the inevitable thing – would be to once again look upon Draco with the rancor and disaffection of their adolescence, yet that day had become Draco's greatest dread. He feared today's incident might have expedited its arrival.

Harry's hand hung over the edge of the bed. Draco saw his fingers twitch, then relax. A breathy murmur followed. The word itself was unintelligible, but Harry obligingly repeated himself as if he knew Draco was straining his ears for the sound not one foot away. The second time, the single word that emerged, sleep-slurred, from Harry's lips was unmistakeable. But then, there were very few words Draco was quite as attuned to as his own name.

"Draco..." Harry murmured.

Draco's heart – as far as he could tell – ceased to beat in that moment, as if to enhance the silence so that Draco could listen again and be absolutely sure of what he'd heard.

Harry nestled his cheek into the pillow. A small, dreamy smile turned up his lips. "Draco..." he sighed again.

Draco's heart dissolved into a thousand tears of ecstasy and melancholy that trickled out into his body and saturated his soul. _Ah, Harry. You make it so hard for me to let go of you._

Biting his lip against the onslaught of emotion that was welling up in him, Draco reached out and tucked Harry's hair back off his forehead. "Harry," he whispered. "Harry."

On a sudden impulse, without stopping to consider that he was in the hospital wing in the middle of the night, or that despite how ecstatic it made his heart Harry murmuring Draco's name in his sleep was a bad thing, or that Harry might not actually be at all pleased by his presence, Draco climbed up onto the bed and tucked himself in next to Harry.

In his sleep Harry adjusted his position to Draco's arrival. He turned onto his side, nestling his face into Draco's neck and curling himself against Draco's body. Draco's skin warmed as if from the sudden onset of a fever. He wrapped an arm around Harry's back and leaned his cheek against the top of Harry's head. His fingers began tracing patterns on the soft surface of the robes covering Harry's back. His thoughts, for the moment, seemed to have shut off. His existence was derived purely of the moment, with no immediate past nor future, and he was thoroughly content.

After a few minutes, Harry began to stir. His nose rubbed back and forth in small movements against Draco's neck as he shook his head in a dazed emergence from sleep. His knees bent, his arm extended across Draco's chest, and his hand gripped Draco's robes. Then he pushed himself up onto his elbow and blinked groggily up into Draco's face with sleep-blurred eyes.

"Draco?" he inquired. His eyes were squinting, whether to peer through the dark or because he couldn't see without his glasses, Draco wasn't sure. But he reached over to retrieve Harry's glasses from the nightstand anyway. Harry obligingly put them on.

"Yes, it's me," Draco said softly.

"You came?" Harry was still blinking the confusion of recent sleep from his mind. He didn't look mad, though. He looked uncertain and maybe even pleased.

"Yeah. Sorry I'm late," Draco said.

Harry was too sleepy to pick up on Draco's wryness. "S'not a problem," he assured Draco. "I'm happy to see you." Harry smiled. It was gone quickly, but its poignancy lingered on in the corners of Harry's countenance and emblazoned into Draco's memory.

"I'm happy to see you too," Draco murmured.

"It's late, isn't it?" Harry observed as sleep ebbed further away and his surroundings began to dawn on him more lucidly. "How'd you get in?"

"Through the door."

"Oh." Normally Harry would have protested against the simplicity of this answer, but apparently in the middle of the night he was more complacent. He groaned softly and lay back down next to Draco.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked with earnest anxiety. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Harry said, but his voice caught a little and betrayed him.

"No, you're not." Concern rose in Draco's throat like bile.

"I am, really. I'm just – healing," Harry wheezed.

"It doesn't sound like healing," said Draco skeptically.

Harry laughed. "No. It doesn't feel like it, either. Funny how that works, huh?" He could be glib; he was a veteran of these processes. Draco, however, had spent comparatively little time healing broken and bruised body parts. The only true injury he'd had to recover from had been 6th year, ironically enough courtesy of Harry himself.

"Harry," he said, frowning because it was better than the next worst thing – crying. "I feel _wretched_. It's – it's all my fault. If it hadn't been for me... If I weren't who I am..."

"Draco. Shh," Harry said. He sat up again and looked Draco in the eyes. "Stop it. I don't blame you."

Oh, Harry! He was such a fool. Such a dear, dear fool. How could he not condemn Draco, even now? Draco had long ago lost any right to a second, third, or even tenth chance. He hadn't earned any benefit of the doubt and here Harry was giving it to him in surplus, undeservedly.

"You ought to," he told Harry.

Harry's face was serious. "I thought you might be like this."

Draco reached up and traced the semi-circle of tired skin under Harry's eye with his thumb. He said nothing; there was nothing he could say. Of course he was like this. There was no other way to be.

"It's not your fault," Harry repeated. Draco shook his head and looked down. "If it's anyone's fault, it's mine for not being more careful or preparing Ron. Or it's Ron's, for being a git."

"He's not a git, Harry."

Harry tried to lighten the conversation by laughing a little and saying, "I never thought I'd hear _you _say that," but Draco just responded with a rueful twist of his lips.

"He _is_ a git," Harry protested. "He's my best mate, but he's still a git."

"I don't blame him," said Draco. "I'd beat myself up too if..." he lapsed into thought, frowning again. Not for the first time, he wished it had been him Weasley had beaten up, not Harry.

"If what?"

"Nothing. I don't know what I was going to say."

Harry nodded and accepted this. He tucked his face back into the crook of Draco's neck and overlapped his body with Draco's, settling in close. "Why can't my best mate accept me for what I am when you, my former enemy, can?" he asked. Draco could feel Harry's lips moving against the hot skin of his neck as he spoke.

Draco's throat tightened. _Because_, he wanted to say,_ I know what it's like to live without even your sympathy, while Weasley won your unconditional devotion without even trying. Because I was only your enemy because you denied me the right to be anything else. _"I don't know," he said quietly after a long pause. But Harry's breathing was already slowing. The rise of Harry's chest against Draco's side and the exhalation of his breath against Draco's skin became even and soft as he drifted back to sleep, leaving Draco awake and alone – more cornered in his own mind with Harry tucked against him than when he was in his room in the dungeons, seven floors away from Harry.

Draco tried to ignore his thoughts. He concentrated on regulating his own breathing and enjoying this moment with Harry instead of mourning its inevitable end. Draco leaned his head back into the pillows. He closed his eyes and felt the soft itch of Harry's hair against his skin, the warm dampness of Harry's sleepy sighs, and the comfortable weight of Harry's limbs entangled with his. Soon, he was enveloped once more by the unique magic of being awake and happy in the middle of the night.

Sometime later Draco awoke disoriented. The light in the hospital wing had gone from black to gray. Harry was asleep in his arms with his head on Draco's chest, and Draco's face was pressed into a starchy hospital pillow. It took him a moment to realize he had fallen asleep, too. _Oh, shit, _he swore to himself. _Oh, shit._ He scrambled out of the bed – carefully, so as not to disturb Harry. Draco paused to fill his eyes with sleeping Harry, mouth gaping and rumpled but endearing, before leaning down and pressing a lingering kiss to Harry's temple. Then he fled the room, disappearing as if he had never been there at all.

In his haste, and believing it to be still so early he must be the only soul in the castle awake yet, he kept his eyes turned down and inward as he exited the hospital wing. This, he reasoned, explained why he failed to notice that he was not, in fact, alone, but rather accompanied by a fluffy-haired Gryffindor.

"Draco Malfoy?" said Hermione Granger in a voice sharp with disbelief and ripe for suspicion.

Draco was jolted out of his state of reverie.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Draco had always been something of a morning person and was therefore quick to sharpen his wits to accommodate the unexpected and unwelcome company. "I could ask you the same thing," he retorted archly.

"I," Granger said, as if to emphasize her comparative right to be there, "am visiting Harry."

"So early?"

"I have class all day, so I had to come before or else not see him until evening."

"I see. Well, he's not awake yet."

Granger's eyes went squinty. "You would know?"

Draco warmed to his theme. Granger had always irked him with her no-nonsense, know-it-all mannerisms. He enjoyed needling her. "I would," he confirmed, and smirked.

Granger bristled. "I don't know what you've been up to with Harry, Malfoy, but –"

Draco cut her off. "I assume you've been regaled with a colorful rendition of what occurred in the library?" Her pursed lips told him the answer was yes. "Well, then," he said, "you understand that what I get up to with Harry is entirely my business."

Granger glowered. Draco was suddenly reminded of an unfortunate incident third-year when she'd punched him in the face and felt vaguely nervous, though he disguised it with an expression of benign haughtiness. For her part, she seemed to be making a visible effort to restrain herself. A moment later her face relaxed into an expression of studied dislike and she appeared to have quelled any violent impulses – at least for the time being.

"I don't trust you, Malfoy," she said quietly, "but Harry does." From the sound of it, she'd been trying to convince herself that Draco wasn't the vile Slytherin she'd always known him as, as well as to placate Draco, but it ended up having the opposite effect.

"Well maybe he shouldn't," Draco snapped, his superciliousness forgotten. How could she manage to find the single worst thing to say without even trying?

She crossed her arms.

Suddenly, Draco didn't feel up to this conversation anymore. He wanted to be alone, and he wanted to unravel. "I have to go," he said stiffly.

"Fine," said Granger.

"Fine."

He pushed past her and swept down the corridor, using every considerable ounce of self-control he possessed to keep himself from losing it in the middle of the corridor.

… & …

Harry was sitting by the lake, again transfixed by the stillness. It felt like time and movement had been suspended around him, but he knew that in a few moments the fog would descend and Fred Weasley would call his name. Even buried under layers of sleep, he recognized this as the same dream that had been plaguing him all year.

"Harry!"

Harry turned and looked, though he had done so a hundred times before on a hundred nights just like this and knew the dream's choreography by heart.

"Harry!"

Harry stood and faced the ethereal reincarnations of Fred and Dumbledore.

"But how are you here?" He heard his voice following the script, but at a distance, like listening to a television from an adjoining room. "Is there anyone else with you?"

Now, Harry knew, Sirius would call out to him and Harry's heart would leap out of his chest so that he'd have to chase it across the lawn toward his godfather. And then Sirius would dissolve into the fog and Harry would fall into the black hole. And then he would wake up. So it always went.

Harry waited. But the grounds remained quiet and Harry's heartbeat remained steady. No voice came. One beat. Two. Five. And still there was silence.

"Where's Sirius?" he asked. Neither Dumbledore nor Fred replied. Aside from the gentle motion of the wind blowing Dumbledore's robe and the fidgety twitches of Fred's face, Harry might have thought the scene had frozen in place around him. "Why isn't he with you? What's going on?"

Harry heard the swish of footsteps and flicked his eyes toward the sound. A form was approaching him through the fog, but it was coming from the wrong direction and was the wrong shape to be Sirius. This person was thinner and slightly taller.

It wasn't long before the figure came into full view. Harry breathed in sharply as he took in the white-blonde hair, the skin the color of moonlight, and the familiar angular features. Harry's body made instinctive motions to cry, but his mind didn't understand why.

"Draco." Harry was dying to step closer, but didn't dare. He knew the pattern of these dreams. As soon as he stepped close enough to touch someone, they would disappear and the dream world would spit him into the abyss. He couldn't let that happen yet.

The dream Draco was staring at Harry with full, sad eyes, his golden pulse matching those of Dumbledore, Fred, and Sirius. It was beautiful to Harry for all he knew what wrongness it conveyed.

"Draco," Harry repeated, his throat sore, "why are you here?"

Draco didn't reply, but he closed the gap between them and reached out toward Harry. He stroked a finger across Harry's cheek, a gesture so simplistically poignant that Harry's heart didn't know whether to swell or break. Draco's lips frowned softly in a sort of rueful, self-deprecating pout. His hand dropped from Harry's face back to his side and he began to disappear.

"No," Harry whispered, reaching out to touch Draco's glowing, vanishing body. "Draco, don't leave me," he cried.

Then the dream went black around him and he woke up curled in a ball beneath the thin hospital sheets, fabric clenched between his fingers and tears sliding down his cheeks. He cried into his hands, urging his body to fall back asleep and take him back to the moment before Draco disappeared. He cried harder when his body stayed stubbornly awake.

As his tears finally dissipated into wet hiccoughs, he remembered that the real Draco had been with him when he fell asleep, but wasn't with him now, and he realized that Draco had slipped away sometime in the night and left him to wake up alone.


	19. Conversations

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN **

**Conversations**

"_Why is it that hate comes out so easily, yet...love? It gets trapped inside." - Unknown_

After the tears and shaking that followed his nightmare had subsided, Harry dozed fitfully until Hermione's arrival roused him once and for all.

"Er'mione? What'chu doing here?" He slurred sleepily, blinking in the wan morning light.

"Sorry, Harry. I didn't mean to wake you. I just wanted to stop by before classes," she said.

"Oh... what time is it, exactly?"

"Half seven." Harry noticed she looked cross; due to the distemper he owed to the earliness of the hour, he attributed the same cause to Hermione's mood.

Harry groaned.

"Oh, dear. Maybe I shouldn't have come," she fretted. "You need your rest..."

"S'fine," Harry assured her. "S'fine."

She pursed her lips in concern, but moved to making small talk about classes and fellow Gryffindors. It wasn't long before she had to leave and the corridors filled with the sound of students making their way first down to breakfast, then to class. Harry wondered vaguely if the incident outside the library yesterday was contributing to the chatter he could hear mutedly from inside the echoey quiet of the hospital wing. More than that, though, he wondered about the conversations of two students in particular – Draco and Ron. He wondered whether his name was on their tongues or in their thoughts and, if so, what effect it was having.

Madam Pomfrey came in a little while later and gave him a quick examination. To Harry's frustration, she deemed a few more hours of napping in order before he'd be fit to be released; he'd hoped to convince her to release him straightaway. His injuries felt fine, really, and if she would just excuse him from the hospital wing, he could go... well, he wasn't sure what he intended to do, but sitting here stewing about things wasn't going to do anything but drive him mad. He fell back into a fitful doze, waking from shallow sleep in cold sweats, roused by fragmented dreams of pursed lips and vacated spaces and quiet voices that jarred him like shouting.

Finally, at half four, Madam Pomfrey bustled into the room carrying a large chunk of chocolate identical to the one she'd fed him and Hermione third year the night of Wormtail's escape.

"Good afternoon," she said cheerfully, pulling a small knife out of her pocket. "How are you feeling?"

"Great!" said Harry, with just a little too much enthusiasm.

She laughed and began hacking at the mass of chocolate. "Eager to leave, are we? Well, you're in luck. A little chocolate, I think, and you'll be right as rain."

"So I can go?" Harry sat up and straightened his glasses.

"Soon as you eat this." She held up a hunk of chocolate as big as his fist. He took it and set in to devouring it so quickly he caused a rogue bite to lodge in his throat and start him coughing dramatically.

"Take it easy there, Potter!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed. "You've no need to rush it so. Classes are finished for the day and dinner's not for a couple of hours yet. You're not missing anything right now."

Harry disagreed; each passing minute seemed to be slipping away from him before his eyes, dissolving into the same oblivion that Sirius – and now Draco – did in his dream. But he took her advice and slowed down. He'd survived the darkest wizard of all time, after all. He wasn't about to let a wayward chunk of chocolate do him in now.

"There now," Madam Pomfrey clucked approvingly as he bit off a smaller bite and sucked on it carefully until it was soft enough to chew and swallow. "Easy does it."

Harry finished off the chocolate while Madam Pomfrey puttered around the hospital wing, humming to herself as she took stock of various potions and cremes, re-made already pristine beds, and disinfected every reachable surface. As soon as he was done, he slid out of bed and began tugging on his shoes.

"I'm off then!" he announced, heading toward the door.

"Not like that, you're not!" Madam Pomfrey chastised him, eyes crinkling in amusement.

"Like wha—" Harry began, before catching sight of his garments. He was still dressed in the hospital robes. "Bugger," he muttered.

A few minutes later, changed into his familiar black school robes and bearing another bit of chocolate to go ("In case you feel peaky later!" Madam Pomfrey had fretted), Harry was finally freed from the hospital wing. As he strode down the corridor toward Gryffindor Tower, he felt euphoric and free and and full of purpose.

That is, until he realized that all his haste truly had been for nothing. He wouldn't see Draco until detention that night – which was hours away yet – and he had nothing to do to distract himself in the meantime. Nothing but stew about the dream that wouldn't settle for simply nagging at him, but insisted on hovering over his disposition like a tiny personal Dementor, making him anxious about the manifestation of some ill-defined fear, a fear that hovered at the edge of his thoughts and dissolved whenever he looked too closely at it – just as Draco had.

Harry's stomach clenched and he was reminded for the thousandth time that day just how badly he wanted to see Draco. He knew it was stupid, but he felt like he _needed _to see Draco, needed to touch him and hold him so that he would know for sure that it had only been a dream, that Draco was still here and real and not going to disappear.

… & …

Draco had reached a point of desperation. After leaving Harry that morning, he'd locked himself in his room and buried himself under the covers and tried to simultaneously ignore how much he wished he were still nestled up against Harry and how uneasy he felt about the status of his and Harry's relationship.

By all rights, Draco couldn't stay with Harry, couldn't continue on in this haze of secret happiness – yesterday's disastrous fight had proven that. But neither could he leave Harry. Last night had proven his resolve to be far too weak in the face of Harry's unconscious and irresistible allure. When push came to shove, Draco never had mastered the art of putting others' needs before his own desires, no matter how well-intentioned his plans to do so were.

Hiding under his blankets hadn't, of course, achieved anything but stifling him and making it even harder to breathe properly. All too soon he'd been forced to come out. So then he'd set into his homework, working with mind-numbing diligence for several hours. After lunch he'd been relieved to have had class; it gave his restless thoughts an external outlet. But now classes were over and dinner was eaten and there stretched before him a tricky block of time that held no claim on his energies. He was free. Free to make himself sick with brooding.

Thus had Draco arrived at his point of desperation. And in his desperation, he had arrived at an unlikely destination: the Slytherin common room. Standing outside the stone wall, he steeled himself before pressing forward into the dungeon beyond.

As he stepped into the room, he was greeted with the familiar din particular to a room full of Slytherins all vying to be the center of attention. With each passing moment, however, the din seemed to grow just a little quieter as pair after pair of eyes turned to the entranceway where the prodigal Slytherin hovered like a harbinger from a another time. Then the din began to resurge as pairs of eyes turned to one another and became pairs of mouths whispering.

Eager to escape the spotlight, Draco willed himself to remain cool as he scanned the room for Pansy and Goyle. The last thing he needed was to take the edge off of his sudden return to Slytherin's public eye by doing something as green as blushing. Nevertheless, it was with relief that he spotted them sitting together on a small couch in the far corner of the room. He made his way over to them, holding his eyes above those of the many Slytherins watching him pass, as if he found them beneath his notice. In actual fact, their attention unnerved him and it helped to pretend they weren't there.

Pansy's expression as Draco stopped short in front of them was one of such astonishment as to overpower the angry twist her features had taken towards Draco ever since the episode in his room. "Draco?" she gaped. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"This is the Slytherin common room, isn't it? And I'm a Slytherin. Last time I checked, the two came as a package deal."

"I mean why are you here _now?_" she amended, without disguising her slack-jawed disbelief.

"Because," Draco said in an acerbic tone that clearly prohibited further questions, "I want to be."

Pansy's eyes narrowed, but she sat back into the couch, getting comfortable again.

Draco cast an appealing look at Goyle, hoping he would step in with some daft remark or another that might ease the tension, but his friend merely stared ahead with a sulky expression.

An awkwardness descended amongst them that had Draco making a concerted effort not to fidget as if in avoidance of a particularly severe and inaccessible itch. He set his teeth to keep from uttering any of the uncertain silence fillers Harry was so fond of – "Er..." and "Um..." and even, occasionally, a combination of the two, "Erm..."

Pansy, clearly resentful of his reappearance in the Slytherin sphere and unwilling to tolerate the disruption he was causing to her evening's enjoyment, stood up. "I'm going to bed," she announced.

"So early?" Draco asked mildly. He didn't care for her to stay, but to say nothing would surely seem nothing less than candidly offensive to her oversensitive perception of social subtleties.

"I need my beauty sleep," she huffed.

Draco scoffed inwardly. "Of course," he demurred.

Pansy pursed her lips as though suspicious of his graciousness. Draco met her disapproval with an expression of benign blankness. Then she turned to Goyle.

"Goodnight," she said, smiling sweetly at him.

"Goodnight," he replied. Draco raised an eyebrow at his onetime friend, but Goyle failed to notice. Partly, Draco suspected, because his attention was rapt on Pansy's departure, and partly because to have done otherwise would have been wholly out of character.

Draco put his feet up on the low table in front of them, crossing his legs at the ankles. He stared at the shiny toes of his black shoes and lapsed into thought. Hardly a minute passed, however, before Pansy had gone and Goyle roused him.

"Why would you come here?" Goyle demanded in an angry tone Draco had previously only ever heard him use on first-years or anyone taking too long to dish themselves desert at dinner – certainly never on _Draco_.

"Excuse me?"

"Pansy told me what you did to her," Goyle said.

Draco, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Goyle was speaking up to him – was outright _challenging _him – failed to produce a swift retort.

"I can't believe you would use her like that," Goyle added in a flat, accusing voice that rankled Draco.

"Can't you?" he snapped acidly. "Sometimes I think it's all I'm good at."

"No argument there," Goyle countered, and Draco had to wonder when Goyle had grown balls – or at least, when he'd decided to start using them – "but I always thought you drew a line somewhere."

"Why would you? My father never did."

"You knew how she felt!" Goyle protested. "You knew she's been soft on you for years and you went and took advantage of her anyway!"

Draco bristled. Goyle didn't know what he was talking about. It wasn't as if Draco had_ set out_ to hurt Pansy. But Draco couldn't tell him that, so he resorted to sarcasm instead, his go-to mannerism as far conversation with Goyle was concerned. "Now it's a crime to hurt someone's feelings?" he said. "My, how the dark have fallen. Voldemort's clawing at his grave, I expect."

Goyle's face darkened. "As if that was enough for you," he glowered. "Now you've come back to rub her face in it, too. Or are you here to win her back? Because that won't –"

"I am _not _here to win her back," Draco interjected. "What do you care, anyway?"

"I don't," said Goyle obtusely.

Even so long out of the Slytherin loop, Draco was not to be fooled – or deterred – by such a weak denial. "Goyle," he said, pegging Goyle the fool with one flat word.

Goyle scowled.

"What is it then?" Draco drawled, aware that the vexation that had brought him to the common room in the first place was causing him to be excessively rude now, but unable to stop himself once he'd had a taste of his former callous superiority. "Jealousy? No, that was never really your inclination or it would have surfaced years ago. Hm. Certainly not moral qualms, we know none of us here have any of those to spare..."

"Shut up," Goyle growled.

"What? Sensitive subject?"

Goyle looked like he wanted to hit Draco. Perversely, Draco almost wished he would. He knew he deserved it – and not only for how he was treating his friend, either. He thought a blow or two might actually be cathartic, might bring him to his senses. But apparently raising an actual hand to Draco was a step too far even for Goyle's new independent streak. He settled for treating Draco to a glowering sulk instead.

Draco made an attempt to reign in his divergence into borderline cruelty. He couldn't apologize, but he could back off. "I'm just going to go," he muttered. "I can tell when my presence is unwelcome."

He stood up. Goyle stood up with him, stepping close so that his face leered down into Draco's.

"_I'm_ with Pansy now," he spat in a low voice. Draco's disbelief was cut short by a brief montage of moments of Pansy and Goyle together this term, looking for all the world as if they were perfectly content to be left to their own devices. "Or at least I will be as soon as she's done licking the wounds you gave her. I want you to leave her alone."

Draco took a step back. Suddenly he felt the last vestiges of his former reputation slip away from him, never to be reclaimed, and wanted nothing more than to flee the room with the greatest haste possible.

"Fine," he said, making sure to meet Goyle's eye; he wasn't going to leave with his tail between his legs. Then he turned on his heel and strode from the room, head held high and eyes cold, strutting for all his name had once been worth. It would be the last time.

On the way out Draco glanced at the clock above the fireplace and, with an unpleasant duality of relief and trepidation, saw that it was finally time for detention.

… & …

Harry was alone. In the Potions cupboard. Kindasortamaybe avoiding Draco. But he was also taking inventory of the storeroom's stock. Because Slughorn had mentioned that they ought to do so if they had time. He'd meant together – and only after they'd finished their prominent task of brewing another potion for Slughorn to use in a class demonstration – but Harry had made some babbling excuse about how Draco was better at Potions anyway and so why didn't Harry just go get the other job done in the meantime? Draco had looked skeptical, but he hadn't protested, allowing Harry to escape to the Potions cupboard in relief.

Harry counted off seven bloomslang skins and made a note of it on the parchment Slughorn had left for that purpose. Then he began searching for spiders' legs.

It wasn't that Draco was being distant or cold, or that his behavior in any way suggested that his disappearance before the morning was meant to indicate something negative (and rationally, Harry knew that Draco's disappearance was only sensible; he shuddered to think what the consequences of them being found in bed together – in the hospital wing, no less! – would have been). No. It was that the minute Harry had laid eyes on Draco his pulse had flatlined and his skin had gone clammy and his hands had started shaking as if he were facing his greatest fear. He hadn't even known he _had_ a new greatest fear until this morning, after waking from his worst nightmare yet.

Two and half boxes containing 200 spiders' legs each. On to bezoars.

Unable to keep calm watching Draco work at the cauldron as if this were any ordinary night in detention, Harry had made his excuses and fled. Now he was working steadily through the checklist, item by obscure and sometimes disconcerting item, in the hopes that the monotony would settle him down. So far it wasn't working very well; the inane work was only leaving his mind even more room to think about why he was hiding in cupboard instead of enjoying time alone with his basically-boyfriend.

Harry no longer doubted that Draco had feelings for him. He did, however, doubt how strong those feelings were, how long they would last, and under what pressures they would endure, especially when it – as it inevitably would – became public knowledge that the Savior was dating – or at least regularly snogging – the Malfoy heir. Harry sighed heavily so that his bangs fluttered in the warm gush of breath. Then he forced himself to count carefully the next item on the list.

Halfway through the checklist, Harry came to Veritaserum. The single tiny bottle was hard to find – tucked behind a box containing a new shipment of textbooks. As he reached for it, an idea dawned on him. A foolish, reckless, impetuous sort of idea. Naturally, once it gripped him he couldn't let it go.

Veritaserum. Truth serum. Things didn't have to be so ambiguous. A few drops of this and he could know for sure just how strongly Draco felt toward him. Harry trapped the potion tightly within his shaky fist and abandoned the checklist. Then he strode back out to face Draco, feeling a little bolder and little less uncertain than when he had left.

Harry came to a stop in front of Draco and waited to be noticed without saying a word. It didn't take long. Almost immediately, Draco looked up and smiled. Harry ignored the purring in the pit of his stomach and held up the vial of Veritaserum. Draco's smile faded into an expression of confusion, then of apprehension.

"We need to talk," said Harry. With the little bottle dangling from his fingers between them, it was clear that he didn't mean an ordinary exchange of words.

Draco hesitated, whether out of fear or a disinclination to talk so candidly with Harry, Harry wasn't sure. But then he nodded.

"Where?" Harry asked. He met Draco's eyes and the most obvious choice for a private venue lingered unspoken in their gaze: the Room of Requirement. But they wouldn't go there.

Draco's eyes flicked down to the table between them as he cleared his throat. "I have a private room," he said softly.

Harry's pulse hiccoughed. He swallowed against a sudden onslaught of nerves, then said, "Okay."

Draco met his eyes again. They were hesitant but resolved, and his cheeks had gone light pink with an abashed flush that made Harry feel torn between wanting to beam at him and wanting to kiss him, despite the nerves that seemed to be doing their level best to disintegrate his stomach from the inside out.

"Tonight?" Draco whispered.

Harry nodded solemnly. It had started out as an impulse, but Draco's reaction had made him sure of this.

"Then you'll want to go back to your dorm first?"

Harry, as usual, hadn't gotten as far as practical details, but this was a smart one. Frantic hygienic efforts to be presentable for such an intimate meeting aside, he would need the cloak and his map. Again he nodded.

"Right then." Draco took a deep, shaky breath. "Meet me at the entrance to the dungeons at midnight."

Harry stared straight into Draco's eyes as he whispered with breathless assurance, "Okay."

… & …

Harry and Draco returned to their individual tasks after that, not saying very much for the rest of the evening. After detention was over, they bid a brief farewell and then Harry raced up to Gryffindor Tower. Thankful for once that their detentions ran so late that most Gryffindors were already in bed by the time he got back each night, Harry slipped into his dorm and grabbed his cloak, map, and (he hesitated a moment before deciding it wasn't presumptuous, just logical) his pajamas and a change of clothes. He stopped in the bathroom on his way out to quickly splash his face with water, brush his teeth, and try in vain to smooth down his several stubborn cowlicks. Well enough satisfied, he tucked his bundle under his arms, swung the cloak around him, and crept back out the portrait hole. Not twenty minutes after he'd departed, his footsteps were clapping quietly against the stone floor of the Entrance Hall as he crossed over to the corridor down to the dungeons.

As Harry approached, Draco stepped out from the shadows just inside the corridor. With solemn eyes he appraised the – apparently empty – space where Harry stood hidden under the invisibility cloak. He took a deep breath, exhaling, "Harry?"

"I'm here," Harry whispered.

Draco nodded. "Okay," he said, running his fingers through his hair in a quick gesture, "follow me." Then he turned and set off into the murky darkness of the dungeon corridor, Harry trailing him.

… & …

Draco's heart was pounding. Here he was, former darling of Slytherin house and, more recently, the house's resident social recluse, leading Gryffindor's most famous hero straight into the heart of their domain. More than that, though, he was Draco Malfoy, taking Harry Potter back to his room in the middle of the night. It was a wholly compromising situation, and that was without even considering the addition of Veritaserum.

Draco came to a stop outside the portrait that hid his room. Harry bumped into him from behind, mumbled, "sorry," but didn't step away. The warmth of Harry's body brushing against Draco's, even through several layers of clothes and enchanted fabric, was especially potent in the drafty air of the dungeons. Draco's fingers curled into Harry's cloak, as if to anchor himself to something familiar when he felt otherwise so adrift.

He licked his lips, then said softly, hoping somehow that Harry might not hear, "Malkin's." The portrait swung open.

Harry followed Draco as he stepped through the now open entryway and went to stand in the middle of his small room.

"Malkin's?" Harry echoed. "That's your password?"

"Yeah," said Draco sheepishly. "You know, like the robe shop?"

"Huh." The space between Harry's eyebrows crinkled. "Why's that?"

"It's, well..." Draco blushed, "it's kind of personal."

Harry scrutinized him for a moment, still looking flummoxed, and Draco prayed he wouldn't insist on an explanation. To his relief, Harry simply said, "Okay," and let the matter drop, though he was plainly still curious. Bloody good Gryffindor manners, thought Draco, trying to quell an odd part of him that had actually harbored a reckless hope that Harry _would_ press him on it.

"So..." he said outloud, "this is my room."

He watched as Harry turned in place, taking in the fourposter swathed in thick green covers a couple shades darker than Harry's eyes, the bare gray stone walls, the two silk upholstered armchairs with the seats worn ragged positioned next to the small fireplace. It wasn't much. Draco noticed the fire had burned itself down to a few last smoldering embers and shot a spell at it so that it surged back to life, filling the quiet with its enthusiastic crackling. Harry stood facing half away from Draco, so that his profile was cast into relief by the warm glow of the firelight.

"It's nice," said Harry at last.

"Not really."

"You have it to yourself. That's something," Harry pointed out, pausing as he ambled over to Draco's desk to look back at Draco. "I've never had a room to myself," he added as an afterthought, almost to himself. "At least, not a proper one..."

Draco shifted his weight between his feet. "Yes, well, what it lacks in luxury it makes up for in privacy," he agreed, adding with a covert glance at Harry, who was now running his fingertip along the spines of Draco's books, "It does come in handy sometimes."

This last statement seemed to remind Harry why they were there. He abandoned his scrutiny of Draco's bookshelves and returned to the center of the room where Draco still lingered. Draco's stomach fluttered as Harry stopped a couple feet away to lean against the back of an armchair. It was a casual pose, but Draco could see how stiffly Harry was holding himself in it, and it made him feel a little better about being nervous.

"So," he said.

"So," said Harry.

"Should we drink this stuff straight up, do you think? Or mixed in with something?" Draco asked. It was easier to think of logistics than of what would follow.

"Better just do it straight up," Harry replied. "Who knows what reactions it might have with other things? It could be like alcohol and drugs or something."

Draco nodded sagely, though he wasn't quite sure exactly what sort of bad reaction came as a result of drugs and alcohol together. "I have glasses," he said, and went to retrieve them from the small top drawer of his bureau. Harry fished the small vial of Veritaserum from his pocket and was uncapping it when Draco returned. Draco held out the small glasses – firewhiskey shot glasses Blaise had brought back as a joke from a holiday in Russia the summer before sixth year – and let Harry pour in the Veritaserum.

"I'm not really sure how much we're s'posed to take," said Harry, pouring half the potion into each glass, "but I figure, if we overdose a little, well, no one's ever died from telling the truth, have they?"

Draco thought that rather depended on the circumstances, but instead of arguing he indulged the Potions professor in him and told Harry, "There's no such thing as an overdose on Veritaserum. It's just that the more you take the longer it lasts."

"Well," said Harry, taking his glass and sitting down in one of the armchairs while Draco took the other, "then cheers." He lifted his glass to Draco, and then they both tossed them back, exactly like shots of firewhiskey. Draco gulped, trying to soothe the sensation that the Veritaserum was freezing his throat as it slid down, the ice cracking after it passed and crumbling into little shards to coat the pit of his stomach in a fine, chilly dust.

"Now what?" Draco's voice came out in a throaty tone that was the result of trying to disguise his nerves with smooth unconcern. Apparently, Veritaserum didn't even take kindly to an editing of demeanor.

"Now," Harry said, his eyes on Draco's as measuredly steady as his voice, "we ask each other questions. About anything."

Here they were, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy alone and with Veritaserum coursing through their bloodstreams – a situation that ought to have them lunging at the many opportunities for exploitation – and they were perfectly silent. It seemed neither of them knew quite where to begin, or what to say.

Harry, always one to jump in headfirst, took it upon himself to break the silence. "What's... what's your favorite color?" he asked lamely.

Draco grinned in spite of himself. Harry didn't seem to have any more of a clue about what they were supposed to be covering than he did. "Green," he said. "Always has been. But not because of Slytherin. Not anymore, at least."

"Why, then?"

Apparently Veritaserum did actually become more potent in larger doses, Draco recognized, because theoretically he ought to have been perfectly able to leave it at 'green' rather than spilling out superfluous explanatory details. Ah, well. Too late now. At least Harry would be equally affected.

"Your eyes are green," he explained. Harry's green eyes bore into his and Draco's cheeks flushed. "My turn," he said, to distract himself from his embarrassment. "Favorite food?"

Harry's eyes crinkled in humor. "Treacle tart. Night owl or morning person?"

"Night owl. Um... Gryffindor password?" Draco smirked mischievously.

"Hinkypunk." Harry made a face. "Planning to break in? Bragging rights as first Slytherin to penetrate the Gryffindor inner sanctum?"

"No, I just couldn't resist." Draco's smirk was more of a teasing grin than anything else.

"Hm..." Harry made a show of wrinkling his face in thought. "Ever been drunk?"

"Once. At one of my parents' insufferable New Years parties. Pansy and I Transfigured a couple champagne bottles to look like sparkling grape juice and got completely smashed. I threw up on the Egyptian ambassador's sandals. The look on my mother's face – I think she seriously considered trying to Obliviate everyone at the party for a few seconds there."

Harry laughed so hard that his eyelashes went spiky with moisture. "What did she do?"

"Called a house elf first, of course, to clean up the mess," Draco said, giggling. "Then she fawned over the ambassador the rest of the night and fed him some sob story about how her poor fragile boy was recovering from a nasty stomach bug he'd picked up from a Mudblood at school. She Vanished my glass, too, and sent the elf to tow me off to my room. 'I don't care what you have to do,' she told it, 'but I want him sober and back down here by midnight or you may as well take his soiled robes and leave.'"

"Oh..." Harry wiped his eyes as his laughter subsided. "Oh God, I'd have loved to see that."

"Knowing you, you'd probably have found some way to get me off the hook," said Draco wryly. "Pansy, on the other hand, was bloody useless. She stood off and laughed herself silly. An elf had to steer her out of the party, too, if I remember right, she was so off her arse..."

Harry's face went serious. "Did you love her?" he asked quietly.

"Who?"

"Pansy."

"No!" Draco exclaimed. 'No. No, no, no."

Harry looked skeptical. "But you were together for years..."

"We were never together," Draco swore.

Now Harry looked confused. "Oh," he said. "But she was always hanging around you, I just thought..."

"Yeah, well, you weren't the only one. That was sort of the point," said Draco dryly, realizing only after he said it how true it was – how true it had to be, considering.

"Oh..." Harry said, evidently comprehending.

"Did you..." Draco began timidly, not sure he really wanted the answer and well aware that they were leaving the safety of favorite colors behind. "Did you love Ginny?"

"I thought I did," said Harry heavily. "And I do, still. I love her more than just about anyone." Draco's stomach winced. He regretted asking; he didn't want to hear about Harry loving someone like Ginny, someone good for him in a way Draco could never hope to compete with. Harry seemed to read the discomfiture in Draco's expression, though, or else the Veritaserum wouldn't let him off with a simple answer, because he continued. "But I don't love her in a romantic way, and now I know that I never really did. Even before I realized it, I never felt properly towards her as you're s'posed to with a girlfriend. I never missed her at night or dreamed about, you know, _getting together_ with her – none of that."

The words Draco was suddenly desperate to ask were on the tip of his tongue: "And me? Do you feel that way about me?" But he couldn't quite articulate them. After a moment, Harry seemed to decide it was his turn again and he changed the subject back to that of his last question.

"So if you weren't dating Pansy, were you dating someone else? Were you..." Harry trailed off, then his features blanched slightly as he seemed to think of something else, something that he immediately asked Draco with a queasy expression on his face. "Were you ever with another boy? Or," he winced, "boys?"

Knowing the truth, Draco almost laughed. "No, Harry. You're my first boy, I promise you."

Relief relaxed Harry's face, but not entirely. "But there's been girls then, haven't there?" Remembering Pansy's molestation, Draco bit his lip. Apparently interpreting this as a sign of Draco's previous promiscuity, Harry added anxiously, "How many?"

"How many what?" Draco asked, to make sure he was answering the right question.

There was a pause as Harry seemingly straightened out his thoughts. "How many girls have you kissed?" he clarified after a moment.

"One," said Draco.

"One?" Harry repeated in evident disbelief.

"Yes, one."

"Just one? How?"

Draco wished Harry would stop repeating it; it was making him feel even more virginal than he was. He shrugged. "Never did much encouraging, I guess."

Harry muttered something to himself that sounded like, '… surprised they needed it … bloody gorgeous …' Draco thought about pursuing that promising thread, but decided against it, instead asking of Harry, "Same question," knowing that it must be more than his own count and preparing to learn that Harry had taken advantage of the many opportunities for snogging (and more) that had undoubtedly presented themselves in the form of dithering fangirls.

"Oh. Two."

Draco let out a breath he hadn't meant to be holding. "That's it?"

"Well it's more than you've got, isn't it?" said Harry, affronted, misinterpreting Draco's response.

"No, no. I just mean... I thought with your hero status and everything... Chances for snogging and all..."

Harry looked amused. "I'm gay, remember?" he said. "I think I'd find it very hard to ignore their... girly bits, even if I was a bit desperate. And have you taken a good look at those girls? Nightmares, honestly..." Draco cracked a smile, reassured. Harry went on. "Besides, I'd rather go without snogging than snog someone I didn't care about," he said, and Draco's heart gave an approving and decidedly hopeful thump.

"Me too," he said quietly.

Harry leaned forward in his seat, as if to reach out to Draco, but he stopped himself. There was a sort of unspoken agreement hanging in the warm, fire-lit air between them that they wouldn't touch until they had seen this conversation through. Not sure he could keep to himself if he held his gaze with Harry much longer, Draco spoke.

"How long have you known?" Draco asked. "That you're gay, I mean."

"July," said Harry. "Near my birthday, actually. It was long enough after the final battle that I'd finally been dating Ginny properly for a couple weeks, and, well... let's just say it became pretty obvious pretty quickly – to both of us. Some birthday present, huh? 'Oh, you thought your life was finally going to be normal and dull? Think again, mate.'" He laughed dryly, then peered at Draco with a particularly curious expression. "What about you?"

"Not that long," said Draco cagily. This was the first question that had brought up something he'd really rather conceal. The Veritaserum wouldn't let him be that vague, though. "Um, a few weeks," he specified. "Four weeks," he added, when that, still, wasn't enough.

"Four weeks," Harry repeated. A knowing savviness that made Draco vaguely nervous was dawning across his face. "That's after you kissed me in the hallway. You didn't know yet then?"

"No," said Draco reluctantly, "not really. To be honest, I was kind of just refusing to think about it. But then... Remember that one kiss with a girl I mentioned?" Harry nodded. "Yeah. Well. That happened. After that it was pretty clear; I couldn't deny it anymore. And besides..." The fine dust that was Draco's perception of the Veritaserum's presence in his system seemed to be solidifying into words that rolled off his tongue without his approval. He tried to rein them in but it was a futile effort, like trying to pluck memories from a Pensieve with your bare hands. "And besides, the more time I spent in detention with you the more clear it became, and by the time Pansy kissed me it was more like a formality, really..." Draco's hands trembled at the outpouring, so he laced them together and tucked them between his knees.

There were hundreds of things Harry could've said in response – Draco could think of several obvious ones off the top of his head – but he said none of them. And in context, what he did ask seemed almost out of the blue.

"Draco," Harry said, "why is your password Malkin's?"

Startled, Draco answered without thinking. "Because that's where I met you."

Harry's eyes widened, and that's when Draco realized what he'd just said. "Really?" Harry asked, so softly he almost wasn't audible over the crackling of flames coming from the fireplace.

Draco was at a loss for words – even the Veritaserum had nothing to add – so he simply nodded, feeling as though his heart had expanded into his throat and his stomach. He didn't know whether it was what he'd said or simply the alluring cast of the firelight, but Harry's eyes seemed to glow. Whatever the reason, it gave him the courage to ask what he did next, licking his dry lips before he spoke.

"Why did you save me?"

The words flared between them as if caught in a sudden flame, then went out, and Draco waited with bated breath for Harry's response.

… & …

Harry stared at Draco, his beauty even more striking than usual illuminated by the firelight's dramatic contrast with the otherwise dark room. He stared at Draco and remembered the last time he'd seen him illuminated by firelight. That time he hadn't been thinking about Draco's beauty. He'd been thinking of one thing, and one thing only: keeping him alive.

"Because..." Harry said slowly, in response to Draco's question. He wasn't sure before he began speaking what the answer was, but he was confident that the Veritaserum would draw it out of him. "I couldn't let you die. Letting you die... that was impossible. I saw you looking up at me, surrounded by the flames, and I just... I knew I couldn't leave that room without taking you with me. I can't tell you why; I'm not sure I even had a reason. It certainly wasn't rational – why would I risk everything to save someone who'd done nothing but torment me for seven years? But look at us now. I don't think I believe in fate, but maybe instinct has always known something we didn't."

Draco listened with a rapt, almost mesmerized expression. "Or maybe we did but we didn't want to," he said.

"I don't know." That small sentence rang even truer than all the rest, so Harry said it again, "I don't know."

Draco's unwavering, inscrutable gaze was making the tiny hairs all over Harry's skin stand on end as his skin burned with a freezing heat. He was suddenly gripped with the conviction that they had reached the climax of this conversation, the precipice of the very reason Harry had suggested it in the first place. He felt unless he harnessed his nerve and said it now, he never would. So he did.

"Draco," he said, in a voice that sounded feverish even to his own ears, "what do you want from me?"

Draco's mouth moved but nothing came out at first, as if his voice had gotten stuck in his throat. "What, in general?" he choked. "Or right now?"

On the word 'now' Draco's voice went low in a way that was palpably suggestive and Harry shivered. "Both," he said.

There was a pause that seemed to stretch on for several minutes, but in reality probably only lasted thirty seconds or less, before Draco answered. As far as Harry could tell, he seemed to be grappling with something within himself. "I want whatever you'll give me," he said at last.

It wasn't the specific answer that Harry had hoped for, the reverential, 'I want to spend every minute now and forever; live isn't worth living anymore when you're not with me,' but somehow it was the right answer anyway. In any case, it seemed to break whatever spell had been keeping Harry in his seat all night, and hardly were the words out of Draco's mouth than Harry was rising and crossing the two feet between them.

Hovering in front of Draco, he whispered, "And right now?"

Draco's hands came up to wrap around Harry's waist. He pulled Harry onto his lap so that their faces were even, and Harry's arms came to rest around Draco's neck.

"I want," he said hoarsely, his lips at Harry's ear, "to kiss you," he kissed the hidden indent behind Harry's ear, "until your mouth is swollen. I want," he slid his fingers into Harry's hair and pulled Harry closer, "to feel your entire body against mine," Harry's eyes fluttered shut and he bit his lip, "and taste your skin until it completely saturates my taste-buds." Draco's lips trailed along Harry's jaw toward his mouth, leaving a wet path across his skin. "I want... I want to feel your hands on me where they've never been before." Harry groaned as his blood gushed west and north and all directions – but mostly south. Then Draco used his grip on the back of Harry's head to tilt his face towards his. Unable to wait any longer, Harry surged forward and captured Draco's lips with his own, pushing him back into the armchair and kissing him deeply – so deeply that he felt as though every nerve ending in his body were being stimulated by the feeling of Draco's tongue tangling with his. Draco's fingers tightened their grip on Harry's hair and Harry arched forward so that his hips pressed distinctly into Draco's. Draco's skin was hot against his as he pulled out of the kiss and pressed their cheeks together.

"Bloody hell," Draco breathed.

Harry smiled to himself, then leaned back enough that he could smile into Draco's face. His eyes fell from Draco's decidedly flushed cheeks to the collar of Draco's robes, which was gaping wantonly to one side. Harry slipped a hand under it and pushed it even farther open, exposing the fragile skin of Draco's collarbone. Then he dipped his head and kissed one of the pair of round bones that protruded where Draco's neck curved into his shoulders. He followed the exposed bone outward along Draco's thin shoulder, tracing it with his tongue through slightly parted lips. He felt Draco's head tilt back and come to rest on the back of the chair, causing his robes to slip further and exposing his entire left shoulder to Harry's eager lips.

It was only when Harry grazed his teeth against the indent between collarbone and neck that Draco pushed him away, groaning, "Stop... Harry, stop... wait."

Harry blinked into Draco's heavy-lidded eyes. "What's wrong?"

Draco leaned forward and pressed his face against Harry's chest. When he pulled back again, his eyes were clearer. "We should move," he said.

"To the bed?" Harry's voice shook slightly and the room went darker around him as if his pupils were shrinking into small pinpricks.

"If..." Draco whispered tentatively, "if you want."

Harry decided that now wasn't the time to start thinking through his actions beforehand. He stood, taking Draco by the hand and pulling him up with him. He pressed a lingering kiss to Draco's lips, using his body to turn Draco and walk him toward the bed. When Draco's legs bumped against the side of the bed frame, Harry gently broke the kiss. Placing his hand on Draco's chest and meeting Draco's eyes, he pushed Draco backward. Then he climbed onto the bed himself and crawled over Draco until he was suspended above him, Draco's hair seeming to glow against the dark green coverlet and his lips parted and blushing pink from Harry's kisses. Draco's eyes were soft with desire but trained single-mindedly on Harry.

They slowed down. When Harry leaned down to kiss Draco, it was a gentle kiss. Slow and sensual, but chaste. He kissed Draco as if there were nothing more to this than an innocent meeting of lips. Draco's hands caressed back and forth across Harry's back, occasionally grasping small handfuls of Harry's robes. Then Draco's hands slid down over Harry's shoulders and slipped under his robes, pushing them off his shoulders and down his arms. Catching on, Harry sat up and tugged his sleeves wholly off so that the robe fell to the side and left him straddling Draco in only his trousers and an old, thin undershirt. Draco grasped him by the collar of his t-shirt and tugged him back down, wrapping his arms around Harry's torso so that Harry had to lay against Draco rather than holding himself above him.

Still slow, the kiss deepened. Draco's tongue lapped at Harry's lips before he opened them and allowed it access to his mouth, where it began almost lazily tracing his lips and his teeth, flicking teasingly every so often against the tip of Harry's tongue. Draco brushed Harry's hair off his forehead and rubbed his thumb gently across the patch of skin that bore the lightning scar before parting their lips and leaning up to trace the scar with his tongue. Harry shivered in Draco's arms. Not even in his fantasies had he ever imagined that anything so simple could feel so erotic. He felt Draco's smile against his forehead, and then Draco was turning him over so that Harry was underneath him. Draco's arms slid behind Harry, supporting his back as Draco scooted them upwards towards the top of the bed without once breaking their kiss, and then Harry's head was laid down on a pillow...

Minutes passed and Harry realized that his shirt and gone the way of his robes, and that Draco's robes were more off than on at this point, gaping open to reveal an expanse of pale chest that shone in the firelight, begging Harry's hands to touch it... Draco's chest was warm, so warm like he had a fever. Harry ran his hands across it, up and down, glorying in the smoothness of Draco's skin and feeling abstractly silly, as though he were petting Draco... but Draco didn't seem to mind, not if the small vibrations Harry could feel emanating from his chest were any indication. Harry gave Draco's robes one last push and they came off, revealing Draco's naked chest without even a shirt to get in the way. Harry wondered absently if Draco always went topless under his robes, or if he had stripped his shirt specially in preparation for tonight. Draco lay his lean body down on top of Harry, aligning them front to front, skin to skin, hip to hip, legs slipping between thighs, and pressed his lips to Harry's chest. Harry tossed his head back against the pillow in pure pleasure, feeling his pulse throbbing in very obvious places that had Draco smirking delightedly into his kisses, but Harry didn't mind... no, not at all...

Draco was kissing his way up Harry's chest to his throat, sucking gently on the vulnerable underside of Harry's neck, and then not so gently – that would leave a mark, Harry was sure; he should say something, but his brain kept short-circuiting on its way to his mouth and coherent speech was impossible... His hand found its way to the sinewy muscles of Draco's back, where it trailed down toward the less muscular more rounded region of Draco's arse and cupped it, urging Draco's body closer to his, and Draco obliged – he arched his hips into Harry's, which sent such a sharp surge of pleasure through Harry's body that he would have cried out if his mouth hadn't been otherwise occupied... And then – and then Draco's fingers – his nimble, nimble fingers – were gliding down Harry's chest, making each nerve they teased tingle excruciatingly, until they reached the barrier that was the waistline of his trousers. They toyed with the hem for a moment, dipping in and out, then, rather than penetrating the dark region underneath, skated over the top. There Draco's fingers paused, then spread out and palmed –

"Ah!" Harry garbled, half-moaning, half-shouting. The weight of Draco's hand - _there_ - jolted him out of his lust-addled haze; it was electrifying and tantalizing and – and terrifying.

"Draco," he whimpered, "Draco." His voice trembled.

Draco stilled. "What?" he panted.

"I – I –" Harry stammered. His head was swirling. He couldn't tell wants from needs from reservations from objections. He was breathtakingly scared and almost painfully aroused; he wanted to keep going full blaze ahead and he wanted to call it all off. In the end, the Veritaserum spoke for him. "I think I need to stop," he said in a small voice, a different flush coloring his cheeks.

For a moment, Draco was frozen on top of him. Then, gingerly, he extracted himself. "Okay," he whispered.

"Okay?"

Draco nodded, retreating to the edge of the bed. But he didn't look Harry in the eye. After a minute, he spoke. "Harry?" he said in an off-pitch voice. "Can you, um, excuse me for a minute?"

Harry stared at him, uncomprehending. Then, too slowly, Draco's meaning sunk in and Harry was overcome with a smoldering shame. "'Course," he mumbled, turning his face and burying it in the pillow to hide his mortification from Draco. He felt the bed rise slightly as Draco stood, then heard a soft padding of footsteps as Draco walked into the bathroom, followed by the click of the door shutting behind him.

… & …

Draco fell back heavily against the door, his breathing hitching. He would take care of this quickly, then he would go back out to Harry... Oh – God – _Harry_...

He heard a quiet cry from the other side of the door and realized Harry was doing the same thing. With a gasp, he finished. Panting his relief, he slid to the floor. Oh, Gods above and sweet hell below had Harry been good. Draco had nothing to compare it to, but he didn't need comparison to know it had been exceptional. He didn't need comparison to know that his mind had been blown. He didn't need comparison to know... Well, suffice to say that Draco's parents had done a very poor – that is to say, entirely negligent – job of teaching him that he couldn't always have what he wanted just because he wanted it. He now knew – without doubts, denials, or qualms – that he wanted Harry, and it was going to take a hell of a lot to convince him to let go after tonight.

That being said, Draco couldn't entirely regret Harry's abrupt plea to stop. He wouldn't have called for the breather himself – he was too headily consumed by his own desire for that – but once Harry's request had forced him to pause and pushed rational thought in through past his ardor, he'd been overwhelmed with the largeness of what they'd been so rapidly escalating towards. He wanted that, he knew he did, but not now. Not yet. It was too much too soon.

Draco's breathing evened out and he stood up. With a deep breath, he turned the knob and stepped back into the room.

Harry was curled up on the bed, facing away from Draco with his face pressed into a pillow. Draco climbed into the bed and settled behind him, propping himself up on one elbow. He waited for Harry to speak first.

"I'm sorry," said Harry at last, murmuring into the darkness.

"Harry," whispered Draco sincerely, "it's fine. Really."

Harry shifted and turned over so that he was facing Draco. His eyes were cast over with uncertainty. Draco kissed him to dispel it. Harry's eyes remained closed when he pulled away, then opened to reveal an expression that was reassured.

"We're still drugged, you know," Harry said.

"So we are," Draco acknowledged. "Got any more questions?" The words were teasing, but his voice was serious.

"I do," Harry affirmed. He appraised Draco solemnly, then asked, "Are you ashamed of me?"

Draco blanched. "Ashamed?" he repeated.

"You didn't come to see me in the hospital wing until after hours," Harry said. "I thought it might be because you didn't want to be seen with me." He ducked his head.

"No," Draco said. "No, Harry. I am not ashamed of you." He didn't want to say what he did next, but the Veritaserum gave him no choice. "I'm ashamed of myself."

Draco was grateful that Harry didn't belittle him by asking 'why?' or showering him with empty negations. They both knew Draco had plenty reason to be ashamed; there was no point in denying it. Instead, Harry was quiet, accepting Draco's statement and allowing that Draco was entitled to be the authority on his own self-perception.

"So... what does that mean? For us?" Harry asked.

"I don't know," Draco admitted. A couple days ago – a couple hours ago – he would have said adamantly that it made a future for them impossible. But something in him had shifted as the Veritaserum coursed through his veins, as if his judgment had been clouded with a mess of grit and sand that the Veritaserum had settled, leaving his mind clear. He knew now that he was in far too deep to think he had the strength to pull out anymore. He was in, and he was going to fight to stay there. That didn't mean other people would make it easy, though. Draco, even Draco in love, was not a fool. He knew that the outside world was cruel, and crueler to him and Harry – in different ways – than most.

"I know it wouldn't be easy," Harry said, echoing Draco's thoughts, "dating me – the 'Boy Who Lived.'" There was a derision in his voice that Draco wished he could alleviate. "And we don't have to, like, come out or anything," he promised, blushing, "but – but I don't want to settle for 'now' anymore. I need to know that you want to stick around." He fell silent and pressed his face into Draco's chest, a position reminiscent of the night before that Draco realized he was already getting used to. He wondered if Harry could hear his heartbeat there.

"I'm not going anywhere," Draco vowed. And that was the truth.

Harry curled an arm around Draco's waist and tilted his head to press a kiss to Draco's neck that didn't seem to be particularly aimed but which Draco savored nevertheless.

"Goodnight Draco," Harry murmured, his hot, sleepy breath heating the skin of Draco's neck.

"Goodnight Harry," said Draco.

For the second night in a row, Draco witnessed the slowing down of Harry's breathing that lulled him into sleep, and knew Harry had drifted off when his brows relaxed and his mouth went just a little slack. He had forgotten to take off his glasses, so they were pushed askew where Harry's face was pressed against Draco's chest. Draco slid them off, careful not to wake Harry. After setting them aside, his fingers returned to brush across Harry's eyebrows over to his hairline. There Draco smoothed Harry's restless fringe away from his forehead, knowing full well it would fall back into place momentarily but unable to resist the gesture all the same.

Irreverent hair pushed briefly aside, the lightning bolt scar was laid naked on Harry's forehead. Draco felt moved, as if he were witnessing something far more personal than the sight of a world famous scar. But it was more than that; it was an identity. An identity that was much less accessible than the bit of skin that was its trademark. Draco traced the jagged line with his eyes, marveling that such a small feature could be responsible for so much. Then he bent his head and kissed it just before Harry's fringe bounced back into place, hiding the scar from view once more.


	20. The Morning After

**CHAPTER NINETEEN **

**The Morning After**

"_If you love the good thing vitally, enough to give up for it all that one must give up, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate! A contempt that drives you through fire, makes you risk everything and lose everything, makes you a long sight better than you ever knew you could be." - Willa Cather_

Harry woke up to morning light. Accustomed to the window-rimmed walls of Gryffindor tower, it took him a moment to realize that there oughtn't be any morning light to wake up to. Because he wasn't waking up in his own bed, and the room he _was_ waking up in didn't have any windows through which morning light could conceivably come in. Once his sleepy mind wrapped itself around _that, _the rest came flooding back. Detention. The checklist. His proposition. The Veritaserum.

Harry's breath hitched a little in his throat and he opened his eyes for real, blinking because _sodding Merlin's pants_, it was really bright for a room with no windows. After the residual delay from spending his formative years in a world that knew nothing of magic, Harry realized that Draco had probably charmed the room to imitate natural light patterns, sort of like the Great Hall. Draco was clever like that.

Harry thought about sitting up, but he decided he was too comfortable to move just yet. Draco's cheek had come to rest on Harry's shoulder sometime in the night, and its warmth was responsible for the irrepressible soft smile on Harry's lips. Was it conceited to think that he was finally reaping his reward for all the years of constant fear and hardship he had weathered to get to this point? If it was, he didn't care. Now that he had tasted such happiness, he'd fight harder to keep it than ever before. He just hoped he wouldn't have to.

Harry snuggled deeper into Draco's thick comforter until his face was level with Draco's sleeping one. Draco's breath brushed gently across Harry's face with each shallow exhalation from pink, parted lips. His eyelashes fanned across the thin skin under his eyes, so blond they were almost white, but longer and thicker than Harry could appreciate from his usual standing distance. The charmed morning light slanted across Draco's sleeping form and illuminated him in a wash of light so warm and magical that he fairly glowed, almost like he did in Harry's dream. But this was different. The dream had been beautiful – almost unnaturally so – but it had been scary, too, because it was so transient. This, however, filled Harry with an even more powerful sense of beauty, a feeling that was comforting rather than achy, because it was real. It was tangible. Harry reached out and stroked the soft skin of Draco's cheek, knowing that Draco wouldn't disappear as soon as he did.

Harry watched the sun rise by gauging the progression of light across Draco's body, perfectly content, but eventually decided to get up. With one last hungry gaze at Draco's relaxed form, as if trying to render a perfect mental image of it to keep in his memory, Harry pushed back the covers and swung his legs to the floor, careful to get up without waking Draco. He stood and stretched, taking in Draco's room now that he could see it in the light of day.

It was tidy. So tidy it almost seemed as if Draco were not really living here, but rather just visiting and not wanting to create too much clutter to be cleaned up when he left. Harry ambled around the room, stopping to run his fingers over Draco's belongings and examine the titles of books arranged neatly on various surfaces – the desktop, the nightstand... When he came to Draco's dresser, Harry noticed a lone glass vial on top that was out of place in Draco's otherwise painstakingly organized room, as if he had set it there temporarily and then forgotten about it. Or as if it were positioned to be within easy access for frequent use. Curious, Harry picked it up.

… & …

"Draco?" The sound of his own name penetrated Draco's sleep. It came again. "Draco?" His first instinct was to react with annoyance. It was Saturday, after all. What business did anyone have waking him up before he was good and ready? But then he recognized that the timbre of the voice was familiar – familiar and cherished. Suddenly he decided he preferred the waking world to the bliss of dreams.

"Hurngh," he said, trying to say 'Harry' with a sleep-numb tongue.

"Draco, what is this?" said Harry. Slowly Draco realized that Harry's voice wasn't adoring as he'd imagined it being. It sounded odd, off somehow.

Draco forced his eyes to open, then to locate and focus on Harry. Harry was staring at something clasped in his hands. Then he looked up at Draco with uncertain eyes and held up something small for Draco to see. But Draco's eyes were still blurry and his thoughts were still slow. The thing in Harry's hand wouldn't connect to a concrete thought in Draco's mind. He smiled sleepily at Harry and wondered why Harry was looking at him like that rather than smiling back.

"I dunno," Draco said, more concerned by how empty Harry's side of the bed felt than he was by whatever was in Harry's hand. "Come back to bed? My feet are cold..."

Harry wasn't listening. "Draco," he repeated. "Please tell me this isn't what I think it is."

Draco would gladly do so – provided he had any idea a) what it was, and b) what Harry thought it was.

"I know I'm bollocks at Potions," Harry continued, "so please correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks an awful lot like the Nocturna Mortem we brewed in Slughorn's class a few weeks ago..."

The words 'Nocturna Mortem' unlocked something in Draco's mind and suddenly he felt far more alert. Nocturna Mortem – that was the dark substance Harry was holding as if it were Voldemort's eighth Horcrux. Shit. He'd left the vial sitting out on his dresser; he hadn't put it away as he'd meant to before Harry came over...

Draco cleared his throat. "It is," he said, then immediately wondered why he would say that. The more awake he became the more clear it was to him that Harry was distressed. It would have been better to lie, to say that it was something else – a pain-relieving tonic. So why didn't he?

Harry's expression was wavering between wary and accusatory. "Why do you have it?" he asked. "I thought I saw you swipe some at the time, but I wasn't sure and it didn't seem that important..."

"I don't know why I took it." That wasn't a lie. He really hadn't given it much thought; pocketing the small vial of potion had been something of an impulse, which Draco hadn't been able to articulate to himself until later.

"Okay," said Harry, "then why did you keep it?"

Harry's voice was getting louder, and so was his anxiety, which was beginning to rub off on Draco. The content glow he'd woken up with was dimming rapidly. He wished he could rewind, go back to his first waking moments and change things so that Harry cast the vial aside as unimportant and got back into bed with Draco instead.

"What is this for?" Harry pressed, when Draco didn't respond. And again, when Draco looked at him and said nothing, biting his lip against an involuntary impulse to speak: "Draco," – Harry's voice was urgent now, and definitely raised – "what do you have this for?"

Draco sat up, holding the covers to his chest. For some reason he felt the need to protect his bare skin, at least, from exposure. "Harry— " he began.

Harry interrupted him. "Have you been planning to kill yourself?"

Draco opened his mouth to deny it, but his tongue wouldn't form the word 'No.' It dawned on him then that he hadn't said a single untruthful thing yet that morning. The Veritaserum was still in effect, he realized, pushing his fringe off his forehead and tightening his fingers around a handful of uncombed hair. He couldn't lie to Harry, but he couldn't tell him the truth either. Yes, technically he had had vague plans of the nature Harry had accused him of, but he no longer intended to follow through with them. Not after last night.

In frustration, Draco diverted the question. "It's none of your business," he said flatly.

"It damn well is my business!" Harry exclaimed.

Draco's mouth opened automatically, but he shut it before the Veritaserum could make him say anything compromising.

"I thought you said you wouldn't leave me," Harry said, quietly this time.

"I won't," Draco said. "I just –" He rose up onto his knees as he spoke, intending to climb out of bed and go over to Harry.

"No," said Harry in a tight voice, stopping Draco in his tracks. "You won't leave?" he echoed in a hollow, raw voice. "This _is_ leaving, Draco." He held up the vial. "This is the bloody _worst_ kind of leaving."

"I..." Draco's usually sharp mind was blank, falling to keep up with the rapid transition between blissful sleep and rude awakening.

Harry stared at him, thoughts flickering across face. Then his expression tightened and his posture seemed to straighten with resolve.

"Well, then," Harry said, uncorking the vial. "If that's how it is, I should have the same right, shouldn't I?"

Draco's mind limped after his mouth. "It's your decision," he replied coolly. Even as he said it he wanted to slap himself, but it was as if his tongue had resorted to his former self on default under pressure. How had things gotten so out of hand so quickly? And how could he possibly reel them back in before it was too late?

Harry didn't reply, but raised the uncorked vial toward his lips. His eyes bore into Draco's over the rim. The glass grew closer to Harry's mouth. Draco swallowed against a surge of sudden panic that rose in the back of his throat in the form of bile. Where was the line in this power play, and how high could they risk pushing the stakes before they crossed it?

"Don't!" Draco burst out when the vial got too close to Harry's lips to bear.

The vial froze.

"Don't. Please." Draco's voice had gone hoarse, as if it knew something he didn't.

"Why not?" Harry's words seemed to saturate the room, filling the empty molecules of the quiet that followed.

Their eyes met and grappled with the force of their wills. The vial hovered in air above Harry's lips, clasped in his fingertips, all but forgotten.

"Because, I..." Draco fought the urge to break his eye contact with Harry, knowing it was only a matter of seconds before the Veritaserum pushed the truth out.

As if in slow-motion, the vial tipped in Harry's absent grip and a several black drops slid towards the mouth. They quavered on the rim, then split from the glass and fell onto Harry's parted lip before slipping onto his tongue. For a split second Harry's eyes widened, then his eyelids fluttered shut and he crumpled to the floor.

"No!" Draco's shout reverberated in the room and sounded foreign to his own ears. Had that wrenched sound really emerged from his throat? Then he was scrambling out of bed and rushing over to Harry, throwing himself down on top of Harry's limp body.

"Harry," he said, cupping Harry's already cooling cheek in the palm of his hand. "Harry, please, open your eyes."

Harry's eyes remained shut. Draco fought to keep his head clear against a wave of panic. His other hand came up to Harry's face as well, and he began stroking Harry's skin as if his caresses could coax Harry back to consciousness.

"Harry Potter," he said, his throat constricting painfully with emotion as he tried not to cry, "you are _not_ allowed to die. Not now. Not when I... when I love you."

A strange choking sound followed his pronouncement. He looked desperately, searchingly, into Harry's face, clutching it tightly between his palms. The color had drained from Harry's cheeks and lips, which were parted in surprise, exposing a black droplet that still clung to the tip of his tongue.

Draco moved without thinking. He leaned down and kissed Harry, concentrating his entire being into the molding of their mouths, and pressing the tip of his tongue between Harry's lips until it touched Harry's. An inexplicable surge of peace and relief flushed over him for a moment, and then the world went black.

… & …

Harry opened his eyes. Or at least he thought he did. He had felt them open – he knew he had – but nothing had changed. All that he could see was the same indiscriminate blackness as the inside of his eyelids. He blinked. It was still black, but now he knew for sure that his eyes were open. You couldn't blink if your eyes were closed.

He tried to speak, to call out, but his lips wouldn't move. He tried to move his arms, his legs, anything, but it was as if they were no longer under the jurisdiction of his brain, nor even connected to his body at all. He couldn't move them, couldn't even feel them. He questioned again whether he really had opened his eyes. Maybe he just imagined he had.

The beginnings of disquiet stirred in his mind. Where was he? Trapped in some unnatural magical limbo where one's existence was whittled down to consciousness and nothing else? How did he get here? More importantly, how could he escape?

Just as he was beginning to panic, Harry was gripped with the sudden sensation of rushing upwards, with a roaring in his ears like wind passing at top speed. He flinched, unable to see where he was going and instinctively expecting to collide with his destination before he saw it coming. But minutes passed and the rushing continued, seemingly endless.

Slowly he noticed things changing. As he rushed forward into more and more nothingness, unconvinced that he was really moving anywhere at all, his vision seemed to be shifting from complete blackness to the dimness of imminent fainting. His body started tingling all over, too, as if he were passing out in reverse. As his vision lightened, the tingling grew more and more uncomfortable. And then hearing began to fade in. He heard his name, as if from the bottom of a deep well. A moment later it came again, and this time it was louder, clearer. The jangling of his nerves crescendoed into an intense buzz. Awareness of his limbs returned in the form of an impossible heaviness, and he worried that he might start falling backward, losing all the ground he'd gained in his blind flight.

Suddenly, with the shock of hitting the ground after falling through the void from his nightmares, Harry was jolted back into his body, into real consciousness. He came up gasping as if from being submerged underwater, a gasping which immediately turned to gagging and coughing as his erratic breaths pulled something liquid into his windpipe. He opened his eyes but immediately closed them because the light burned. The coughing subsided and he tried to catch his breath, breathing carefully with his now raw throat.

Noise surrounded him, many voices talking at once – "Oh God, oh God, he's okay... " " ... he's not! Can't you see 'im hackin'? Where's Madam Pomfrey?" " … can't believe it worked … just a guess … a long shot … " " … come on guys, back away now, don't crowd him … " " … let me through, I've got chocolate … " "What happened?" " … okay too?" " … bloody cares, it was his fault … " " … found 'em together, I heard … " " … prolly jinxed … " " … Imperiused, more like, people don't change … " " … well what d'you expect? … sick, the lot of 'em … " "EVERYBODY OUT!" There was a dissonance of grumbling and shuffling feet, and then Harry's world was quiet again.

"Harry," said a voice that was distinctly Madam Pomfrey. "Harry, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?"

Harry tried again, blinking rapidly as harsh light flooded his eyes after such pure, undiluted darkness. Slowly they adjusted and the world materialized before his eyes, blurry and garish. Somebody had taken his glasses off. He tried to sit up, but he was pushed back down.

Madam Pomfrey clucked disapprovingly. "Not yet you don't, Mr. Potter. You're lucky to be alive."

"Glasses?" Harry croaked. They were handed to him, and the hospital wing came into focus.

"How do you feel?" Madam Pomfrey's lined face was creased with concern.

"Dunno... okay, I guess... What happened?" Harry felt disoriented and woozy. He still had no idea how he'd come to wake up in the hospital wing, much less in such a bizarre fashion. It seemed some kind of accident had taken place – involving him, and someone else – but he couldn't remember...

"Well that's the thing," said Madam Pomfrey, tucking him back into bed, feeling his forehead, and scanning him with her wand. "Nobody's quite sure, Potter. We were hoping... well, that if you made it through you'd be able to explain it to us."

"Made it through what?" Harry asked.

Madam Pomfrey hesitated. "You were poisoned, Potter. By an imperfectly brewed draught of Nocturna Mortem. We can't figure how he even had any; several essential ingredients aren't even available to students..."

Harry stopped listening. _Nocturna Mortem._ Suddenly it came back to him. Waking up in Draco's bed. Looking around the room and noticing the vial on the dresser-top. Baiting Draco because his fear made him angry. Taunting Draco with the vial held aloft, though he had never intended to follow through with it, he just wanted Draco to know how it felt, to be overcome with the fear that the happiness you clung to like a lifeline might be destroyed by the very person who was responsible for it... And then nothing. Nothing until waking up.

"Potter?" Madam Pomfrey said, interrupting Harry's thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"I asked you if you remember anything."

"Where's Draco?" Harry said, ignoring the question.

"Mr. Potter, under the circumstances, I don't think..."

"Where is he?" Harry pressed, adamant. "Is he okay?" He pushed himself up in bed again, successfully this time.

"He's... over there," said Madam Pomfrey, looking as if she'd rather ask him why he cared than discuss how his former enemy was faring.

Harry followed the nod of her head and for the first time noticed curtains drawn around the bed a couple down from him. He climbed out of bed before Madam Pomfrey could stop him and rushed over, thrusting the curtain aside to reveal Draco stretched out on the bed, eyes closed and unmoving.

"What's the matter with him?" Harry demanded, taking in the unnatural pale of Draco's skin, how he could almost see his blood stagnating beneath it.

"Mr. Potter, please calm down! Your condition is still delicate, you're going to overexert yourself! Come back and lie down and I can explain…"

"No! Stop!" Harry cried, his anxiety strung so tight it snapped. "I'm alive, aren't I? That's good enough for me. So how can you justify still giving me preference over another student who's _dying_?" He glared at her with hot, indignant eyes, then turned his attention back to Draco before she could give whatever unsatisfactory answer she'd opened her mouth to deliver.

Draco looked strangely peaceful. He could almost pass for the boy he'd been hours before when Harry had gazed at him in the morning light, if not for the ethereal pallor that matched his body to the monochromatic white color scheme of the bed linen. Harry stroked his face, brushing his hair back off the cool skin of his forehead. Draco felt so fragile beneath his fingers.

Harry turned back to Madam Pomfrey, who was watching him with a stupefied expression. "Tell me what's wrong with him," Harry implored her.

This time, she acquiesced. "I can only tell you what I know," she said. "You two were brought to me this morning for examination, in similar states – unconscious and weakening by the minute. Apparently you had been found together, though I don't know what the circumstances were. I was was able to ascertain that you, Potter, had been administered a small dose of Nocturna Mortem – not usually poisonous, as you know, but potentially lethal when brewed imperfectly, as Slughorn determined the contents of this particular vial to have been."

"And Draco?"

"Like I said, he was delivered in a similar state, though he didn't seem to have ingested the potion himself." Her eyes narrowed as she said this, and Harry understood that she – and most likely everyone else that knew what had happened – believed that Draco had intentionally poisoned Harry. Bad as this was, Harry would have to address it later. Right now he had more pressing concerns.

If Draco hadn't ingested any of the potion, then why had he suffered the same fate? Harry wracked his brain, but all he could remember was taunting Draco, then a drop to splashing on his tongue in his distraction – it was his own fault – and then blackness. It was unlikely, however, that Madam Pomfrey could provide him this particular answer. The only one who could was Draco, and he was in no condition to provide any answers just now.

"So if the potion should have been fatal... how am I alive?" Harry asked.

"Ah. You actually have your friend Granger to thank for that. Nocturna Mortem's properties are such that it does not normally require an antidote; it's effects simply wear off after the amount of time dictated by the dose." Harry nodded impatiently. They'd learned this in class. "A corrupted brew like this one, however, does not wear off, but subjects the victim to a sleep so impermeable it is akin to death. There is no cure."

"But how –"

"That's where things get interesting, Potter." Madam Pomfrey was warming to her theme, the reality of the situation evidently being usurped by her passionate interest in the theory of it. "By all rights, you should have been lost to this state of death. I explained this to your friends, but they wouldn't accept it. Granger insisted that I do something, though the your condition appeared hopeless. She suggested that I give you a dose of Wiggenweld – revival potion." That must've been the liquid he'd breathed in when he woke up, Harry realized. "It shouldn't have worked, it's not nearly powerful enough for that kind of revival, but it did. Somehow, something interfered with the potion's grip on your body before I ever laid hands on you."

This was perplexing – amazing even – but Harry had no time or patience for amazement right now. He had been saved, but Draco remained sedated and was slipping away from him as they spoke.

"If it worked, then why didn't you give a dose to Draco?" he demanded. He was galled. How did she get off depriving a student of care just because of old prejudices? The war was over. This was supposed to be a new era, a fresh start. The grievances of the past were supposed to have put aside.

"I did," said Madam Pomfrey. "It didn't work."

"Why?" Harry was staggered.

"I don't know." She almost seemed apologetic. But it didn't change the fact that Draco was dying and there was nothing Harry could do about it. No foes he could fight, no barriers he could overcome.

Harry hovered over Draco's prone body, desperation gnawing at his insides. He had seldom felt so helpless. He traced Draco's bloodless lips with a fingertip, and an idea came to him. An idea that sent him back to his thoughts that day in class when they had first learned about Nocturna Mortem. It was far-fetched, and he didn't know nearly enough about potions to be sure, but it seemed just improbable enough to be possible.

But what that said about Draco's feelings if it were true... Harry's breath caught. It would suggest that Draco's feelings toward him were far more, even, than he had dared dream them to be. For it to be true... Harry's feelings were that strong, that powerful, that instinctive – but were Draco's?

Harry looked from Draco back again to Madam Pomfrey. "I need the Wiggenweld," he said.

"But it didn't – " she protested.

"I have an idea," he said, "and I have to try it."

She seemed to accept that the situation had superseded her scope of normality and he was not to be dissuaded. She went to fetch the potion.

Harry met her eyes as she handed it to him. "What happens next," he said carefully, "doesn't leave the room."

Too bewildered to argue, Madam Pomfrey nodded.

Harry uncapped the bottle and took a small swig. Then he leaned down and kissed Draco squarely on the mouth.

Somewhere in the background he heard a small gasp that must have come from Madam Pomfrey, but he was preoccupied with kissing Draco's lips firmly, opening them with his own and letting the potion wash over them. As he kissed Draco, he felt something more flowing out from him than just potion. Something seemed to be pulling out of his very marrow and surging toward Draco. Something with intangible power like magic, or soul, or love.

After a minute Harry started to feel weak and breathless, so he separated their mouths to catch his breath. As he did, he was consumed by a hollow swooping sensation. For the second time that day, Harry began to fall into the blackness of unconsciousness, but as he fell he felt no fear, because he could feel Draco stirring beneath him.

… & …

When Harry came to again, he was back in his hospital bed. His eyes immediately went to Draco. Draco was lying on his bed, no more awake than he had been before, but there was a reassuring flush to his cheeks that convinced Harry his condition had greatly improved. Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

"Harry?"

Harry rolled over and was surprised to find he had to visitors. Ginny and Hermione were sitting by his bedside, almost identical worried expressions on their otherwise completely dissimilar faces. Had he been so preoccupied with Draco's well-being when he woke up that he'd missed them altogether, or had they just arrived?

"Ginny," he said, surprised at how comforted he was that they'd come. He hadn't realized how badly he'd needed to see a familiar face. "Have you been watching me sleep?"

"Not for long." Ginny smiled her impish grin.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Nearly half seven," said Hermione. "We've just come from dinner."

"Oh." It was amazing how quickly time passed when one was unconscious. It seemed only minutes ago that he'd woken up in Draco's bed that morning, and even less time since he'd gone all Romeo and Juliet on Draco in front Madam Pomfrey.

"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked.

Harry hadn't thought about it until she'd brought it up. "Fine," he said, after taking stock. "Bloody tired, but fine."

"Are you sure?" Ginny took his hand and squeezed it. "We were so worried..."

He gave her a small smile.

"Pansy found you. She thought you were dead," Hermione said with a pinched expression, as though pained by how close Pansy had come to being right. "She said she was coming to talk to Draco about something or other, and when he didn't answer his door she assumed he was still sleeping and decided to wake him up since she apparently remembered his password from some sort of tryst, though she didn't seem keen on talking about that much. To be honest, it was a bit hard to get a straight story out of her..."

"So does everyone know?" Harry asked, glancing sideways at Draco. His eyes were closed and his breathing was regular.

Ginny and Hermione exchanged a look.

"No, not exactly..." said Hermione.

"There are rumors," said Ginny.

"Rumors?" Harry echoed.

"About why you were found together," Hermione explained. "It's a bit, well..."

"Scandalous," Ginny finished.

Harry's stomach sank. "What're they saying?" he asked listlessly.

"That he's in unrequited love with you and poisoned you with a dark arts love potion; that you've developed a dark wizard complex," said Ginny, ticking each one off on her fingers with enough relish to make Harry wonder whether some part of her wasn't enjoying this a little bit. She always did enjoy the outrageous side of gossip. She continued, "... That your rivalry has been a smoke screen all along; that Malfoy lured you into a fight to revenge Voldemort's downfall..."

"Oh, God." Harry closed his eyes, unable to listen to any more.

"They're only rumors, Harry," Hermione said, trying to reassure him. "It's not that bad. It'll pass."

"Well, it's pretty bad," Ginny amended. "Those weren't even the worst of it. You should hear what the Hufflepuffs are saying about sadomasochism – and everyone says they're the innocent ones, honestly..." Ginny shuddered. Hermione shot her a look. "But Hermione's right. Everyone knows what you and Malfoy are like; nobody's really going to believe you're together. It _is _awfully unbelievable. Besides, people have said outrageous things about you before and they've always blown over, haven't they? I mean, nobody thinks you're Slytherin's Heir anymore, or about a hundred other things you've been accused of. "

"Yeah, but this time it's actually true," said Harry.

This seemed to stump them for a moment.

"Have you given any thought to coming out, Harry?" offered Hermione hesitantly. "I mean, if you're serious about dating Malfoy you can't keep it secret forever. And this certainly gives you an opening..."

"People seem to find it more entertaining than anything," Ginny added. "You know, something new and scandalous to gossip about over evening pumpkin juice. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all?"

"I doubt they'd think it was so entertaining if they knew it was actually true," said Harry heavily. "Ron certainly didn't."

"Harry..." said Hermione. Ginny squeezed his hand again.

Harry didn't believe for a second that people would accept his and Draco's relationship with grace or open minds, but Hermione was right – they couldn't keep it a secret forever. Nor did Harry want to. He wanted to hold Draco's hand when he felt like it and kiss him when he wanted to without having to worry about who might see. He'd just wanted to do so on his own terms, when they were both ready and their relationship was strong enough to withstand the onslaught of public attention.

Suddenly, Harry wanted them to leave. Talking about it was only making him feel worse.

"I'm really tired," he said, doing his best to look weak and recently poisoned, knowing it would elicit immediate sympathy.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry. I didn't even think... We should go," said Hermione, standing. "You need your sleep. Come on Ginny."

Ginny rolled her eyes at Hermione's overbearing maternal-like fretting, but she stood up after Hermione.

"Cheers, Harry," she said, kissing him on the cheek.

"Bye," he said. Then he rolled over, turning his back on them as they left and facing Draco's bed... where his eyes met Draco's. Draco's _open _eyes.

Harry stared into Draco's unblinking gaze, wondering how long he'd been listening.

Draco stared back with a sort of resigned horror, and Harry knew he'd heard every word.


	21. Loving a Loathed Enemy

**CHAPTER TWENTY **

**Loving a Loathed Enemy**

"_My only love sprung from my only hate / Too early seen, unknown, and known too late / Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy." __- Shakespeare_

"Fascinating, simply fascinating..." Slughorn's boisterous voice preceded even his belly into the hospital wing.

"Shh," Madam Pomfrey reprimanded him anxiously. "You'll wake them."

Draco, who had been denying his return to consciousness for several minutes, as well as the light urging his eyelids to open that signaled the arrival of morning, heard Harry stirring in the other bed. He kept his eyes closed, preferring the privacy of feigned sleep to the various potential harassments of waking.

"Terribly sorry, terribly sorry," said Slughorn, not sounding sorry at all, but rather like a little boy delighted by an unforeseen surprise. "But as long as they're up... might I have a few words with them?"

"Just a minute, Horace!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, from the sound of it barring Slughorn's entrance into the wing. "Allow me to check on them first. Wait here."

Madam Pomfrey's footsteps sounded on the hospital floor as she approached their beds. Draco resisted the urge to pull his covers over his head and groan. He felt as if he'd spent the night beneath the Whomping Willow.

"Boys?" queried Madam Pomfrey tentatively. "Are you awake?"

There was a pause, and then Harry's voice mumbled, "Yeah."

Grudgingly, and with an inward sigh, Draco opened his eyes. If Harry was awake, Draco had to be too. Clearly Harry hadn't spent his childhood evading unpleasant early morning responsibilities with the sleepy and innocent little boy routine as Draco had, otherwise he wouldn't have betrayed them this way.

"How are you feeling?" she inquired, pushing back Harry's fringe to feel his forehead, then turning to Draco to do the same.

"Fantastic," said Harry, with an edge of sarcasm that, judging by Madam Pomfrey's response of "Wonderful!" only Draco picked up.

"Are you well enough for visitors?" she asked. "Because Professor Slughorn is here and he'd like to ask you a few questions if you're feeling up to it."

Harry's expression – vague impatience and a slight grimace – perfectly reflected how Draco felt.

"Um..." Harry said.

Slughorn, who had evidently been listening in on the proceedings, pushed open the door at this less than decisive acquiescence and strode into the room.

"Excellent!" he said, Summoning a chair to sit in between Harry's and Draco's beds.

"Fifteen minutes. No more," Madam Pomfrey warned him, with a disapproving wrinkle of her brows.

"So," said Slughorn.

Draco pushed himself up to a sitting position, deciding he'd rather not be prone for this conversation.

"So," Harry replied.

"This is quite a situation. Quite a situation indeed," Slughorn mused. "Amazing, really. I've never seen a poison behave in such a way in all my years. And they are many!" he chortled self-indulgently. "It will be a fascinating mystery to solve, I'm sure. But first I need the whole story – that's the starting point. And you're the only ones who can tell me." He fixed them with a beady gaze, somewhat hampered in effect by emerging from the fleshy folds of his cheeks and eyelids.

Draco and Harry exchanged a glance, reluctant to share more than the fragments of the story that had already made their way into public knowledge.

"Well come on, boys. Don't be shy. You're not in trouble!" Slughorn laughed as if the very idea were ludicrous, but Draco didn't miss the way his eyes cut over to Draco's bed, lacking the mirth his laugh feigned. "I am but an ambassador for the field of Potions! Now tell me, how did you end up taking the dose of Nocturna Mortem, Harry?"

Harry stared back at Slughorn without speaking.

"Or perhaps that's not where our story truly begins, is it?" said Slughorn, turning to Draco. "Perhaps the first question I should be asking is why you had a vial of the potion in your room to begin with, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco schooled his expression into benign blankness.

"Sir, he only wanted to study it for class," Harry answered for him. He could defer opportunities to stand up for himself, but he was unable to let someone he cared about go undefended.

Slughorn turned back to Harry. "And what – he decided to do a practical experiment on you, and that's how you came to be poisoned, Mr. Potter?"

Harry glowered. "Draco didn't poison me."

"No? Then I'm sure you'll be willing to explain to me what actually happened."

"It was an accident."

"An accident," Slughorn repeated, with skepticism. He glanced back and forth between them for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Well, let's not quibble over details, shall we? We know Potter swallowed a portion of the potion. For my purposes it doesn't really matter how or why. The important thing is what happened next, because that will provide the insight into _why you didn't die_." He looked earnestly at Harry, as if he could extract the information with pure determination. "Something interfered with the potion's progress between when it crossed Potter's lips and when he was taken to Madam Pomfrey. I want to know what that something is."

Harry glanced at Draco, unease plain on his features. They hadn't had a chance to prepare an alternative version of events. And, it occurred to Draco, Harry didn't even know what the real story was. Not in its entirety, anyway. Several potential lies flitted through Draco's mind, but just as quickly he discarded them all. It wasn't as if he'd done anything wrong, and he was sick of disguising himself for other people's benefit, as if he were some sort of deviant.

"I kissed him," he said.

Harry's eyes widened with something Draco couldn't identify but wasn't the surprise he'd expected.

"You – what?" Slughorn spluttered.

"I kissed him," Draco repeated matter-of-factly. "To get the potion off his lips."

"You... to get..." Slughorn's expression wavered between astonishment at the impossible revelation and dawning enthrallment with its resulting Potions implications. His eyes glazed over, and though he continued speaking aloud his attention was clearly focused inward. "How remarkable... I wouldn't have thought... but maybe... as an emotional shield... a bond of sorts... powerful... might negate fatality... a lifeline for the drinker... but the other?" He shook his head slightly as if to clear his vision. "Potter," he barked, "did you likewise interfere with Malfoy's status after you were revived?"

Harry, looking somewhat bewildered, replied, "Yeah, I guess. I, uh, I kissed him too. With Wiggenweld in my mouth."

A swooping sensation surged through Draco's body, originating near his heart. He turned his eyes toward Harry, who was blushing and not looking at him. He remembered the emotion that had inspired him to kiss the potion from Harry's lips, how powerful it was, how consuming. And Harry, unknowingly, had done the very same thing... Draco couldn't articulate what that meant to him, but his body was staggered by it.

Slughorn's eyes lost focus again, oblivious to the turmoil of emotions welling in the two unlikely students whose circumstances had him so captivated. "Of course... a sacrifice shares the effects... the saved alone holds the capability... must reciprocate to, in turn, save the savior..."

Just then Madam Pomfrey bustled back into the room. "That's sixteen minutes, Horace. These boys need their rest, as I'm sure as a fellow professional you will agree."

"Yes, yes, of course," Slughorn complied absently, rising and exiting without seeming fully aware of his surroundings, still murmuring to himself.

"You two," said Madam Pomfrey, addressing them sternly, "ought to go back to sleep, if you know what's good for you."

"Mightn't we... mightn't we go back to our dorms? And sleep there?" Harry asked. "I feel fine, honest."

Madam Pomfrey narrowed her eyes as if suspicious that anyone could feel remotely fine after nearly dying the day before, and Draco had to agree with her – he felt battered and weary and would gladly spend the next two days sleeping it off.

"Tomorrow morning – maybe," she allowed, well-versed in Harry's brand of obstinacy after years of familiarity with his resistance to prolonged invalid-hood. "For now, drink up."

With a swish of her wand, two goblets appeared on the bedside table. Draco appraised it reluctantly, wanting to stay awake for a little while to discuss the last thirty-six hours with Harry rather than immediately going back to sleep. But Madam Pomfrey was apparently not about to budge until she saw both goblets emptied, and so, with a commiserating glance in Harry's direction, Draco gulped the contents down.

… & …

It was dark in the hospital wing when Draco came to. For a moment he was disoriented, confused as to what had woken him. Then a whisper disturbed the room's soporific stillness – "Draco!"

Draco's pulse jumped, more awake than the rest of him, at the sound of Harry's voice.

"Harry?" he whispered back.

"Are you awake?"

Draco rubbed his eyes. "Sort of," he murmured.

There was a swish of sheets and a soft thump, and then a warm brush of air across his cheek as Harry whispered, "Scoot over."

Draco obliged, and Harry inserted himself into the empty space, pulling the blankets up over them and tangling his feet with Draco's.

"Ag! Your feet are freezing!" he accused, his face inches from Draco's but barely visible in the darkness.

"Sorry," Draco whispered abashedly, even as an amused smile tugged at his lips.

Rather than pulling away to escape Draco's cold feet, Harry pressed himself closer, snuggling in so they were tucked intimately together. A warmth that had nothing to do with outside temperature started in Draco's toes and rose to spread throughout his entire body, ending with a flush of his cheeks.

"To what do I owe this unexpected midnight pleasure?" he asked quietly.

Harry didn't answer, instead capturing Draco's lips in a kiss that was all sleepy softness and warm skin. The kiss lingered, their lips never pulling more than a couple centimeters apart to allow for air. Draco's free hand threaded into Harry's hair and slid to his neck, cupping it so that his mouth was at the best angle for Draco's kisses. His foot slipped between Harry's legs and Harry shifted to accommodate it, so that they were intwined beneath the cover of sheets and darkness but otherwise in plain sight of anyone who might stray into the hospital wing – unlikely at this hour of night. It was a relaxed kiss, a kiss without the tension of undisclosed secrets or the ache of over-wrought passions. It was a patient kiss, a kiss sure in the knowledge that more would come.

"You kissed me," Harry said when they finally parted, though their mouths still hovered only an inch apart so that the tips of their noses occasionally touched when they moved their heads.

"Actually, I think it was you who kissed me," Draco corrected.

"No, not now. Earlier. Yesterday."

"Oh." Draco exhaled so that his breath washed across Harry's face. "Yes, I did."

He peered into Harry's eyes, wishing he could see them more clearly. Harry peered back, his eyes outlined by the shadows of his lashes and seeming wider than ever with his omnipresent glasses forgotten on the bedside table. He raised a hand and traced Draco's eyebrow with his thumb, pressing gently as if to relieve some invisible tension.

"Thank you."

Harry's softly spoken words washed over Draco with the soothing fluidity of Phoenix tears. Draco let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and let his cheek fall into the palm of Harry's hand. His eyelids fluttered shut and he held still, feeling the stroke of Harry's thumb across his skin. Then he turned his face and pressed a kiss to Harry's palm.

"You do realize what being released tomorrow means, don't you?" he said, opening his eyes.

Harry nodded solemnly. There was no need to articulate it. They both knew the acute attention bordering on hysteria they'd be facing.

"What should we do?"

"I don't know. I think – "

Just then there came the sound of a door opening from the direction of Madam Pomfrey's quarters, followed by footsteps. Harry's eyes widened and he immediately began to extract himself from Draco's bed.

"We need to talk," he whispered earnestly as he slipped out from under the covers.

"I know," said Draco. "Tomorrow – come to my room, as soon as you're alone."

"And until then?"

The footsteps crescendoed.

"Just... just try to avoid saying anything."

Harry – who had already tucked himself back into his own bed – made a wry face at Draco at this hyperbolic request, but nodded. Then his eyes closed and his expression relaxed into the blank calmness of sleep, so convincing that Draco himself would have believed it if Harry hadn't been talking to him just seconds before.

A moment later Madam Pomfrey emerged into the room to check on her patients and found them both fast asleep.

… & …

Much to Harry's relief – he hated being powerless, in the face of danger or rumors or anything else – he and Draco were discharged the following morning in time for breakfast. Neither of them suffered any residual symptoms of their recent bout with Nocturna Mortem other than a disinclination to get out of bed, something just as well explained by the earliness of the hour (and the lateness of their midnight tryst, but Madam Pomfrey, of course, knew nothing of that).

They had decided in a quick sotto voce conversation outside the hospital wing that it would be best for them to enter the Great Hall separately, so as to attract the least attention and not further feed the flames of the roaring rumor mills. Standing outside the doors to the Hall a few minutes later, however, Harry regretted that decision. He wished he had someone with him for moral support as he faced the overzealous eyes of the student body. Entering alone, he felt conspicuous and exposed – and for good reason. The moment he steeled himself and stepped into the room, as nonchalantly as possible, it was if a thunderclap had sounded to announce his arrival. It seemed to him that voices fell silent mid-conversation, mouths slowed mid-chew, and movement froze in mid-air as everyone in the hall paused what they were doing to turn and watch him as he made his way to the Gryffindor table.

Activity began to restart in slow motion. Limbs frozen in suspension drifted to their destinations, food was distractedly swallowed, heads began to turn from him to neighbors, and voices expressed an awed curiosity than soon crescendoed into a bold chorus of speculation and assumption that buzzed throughout the hall.

As Harry passed along Gryffindor table, looking for his friends, a hand shot out and grabbed him by the arm.

"Harry! Here," said Ginny, pulling him into the empty seat next to her.

Hermione had just enough time to lean forward earnestly and ask, "How are you, Harry?" before Harry was descended upon from several angles by Gryffindors and neighboring tables alike in a barrage of questions, which he answered as honestly as he could without revealing a word of the real truth.

"Were you really in Malfoy's room, Harry?" a fearful younger Gryffindor wanted to know. ("Yes.")

"Is it true you and Malfoy made a suicide pact?" someone probed from over his shoulder. ("No.")

"I heard he lured you into his room to poison you as his start to becoming the next Dark Lord," a pompous Ravenclaw informed Harry and the crowd at large. ("That's rid– ")

"Don't be daft," countered a cocky Hufflepuff boy with a distinctly devious expression. "He lured Harry there to make him his love slave." ("He didn't – ")

"Ooh, that's really sick, Will," another shrieked delightedly. ("He's not – ")

"Did he really kidnap you, Harry?" a concerned Gryffindor interjected. ("No!")

"So Harry Potter's developed a dark fetish, has he?" purred a rogue Slytherin girl. "Let me know when you need proper hit, we all know Malfoy's not exactly up to snuff anymore." (This Harry didn't even dignify with a response.)

For all his effort to be equivocal, however, nobody was really listening to him at all. It didn't take long for Harry's patience to snap.

"Draco Malfoy did not attack me, trick me, or harm me in any way!" he exclaimed, hoping – rather in vain – to set Draco's record clean, if nothing else.

There was a brief pause as the group was taken aback by his outburst, but then the stream of questions bubbled up again as more people crowded around Harry to get their few words in. Harry sighed. It was the biggest Hogwarts scandal since the dramatic departure of the Weasley twins and everyone was angling to get their own handful of it as if it were leprechaun gold at the World Cup.

Across the table, Hermione watched him concernedly, visibly swallowing against the words of well-intended support and inquisition that she was clearly dying to smother him with. Next to her, Ron's eyebrows were furrowed in Harry's direction in what was a grave, though not openly hostile, expression. Under the table, Ginny took his hand and squeezed it.

Suddenly several voices broke off at once and an unusual hush fell across the hall. Harry looked up to search out the source of the disturbance in time to see Draco slip into his seat at Slytherin table. His bearing was a masterpiece of deception – aloof, unconcerned, and impenetrable. Harry's chest tightened at the sight of him, because he alone knew what that deception hid and he ached to weather the surge of unwanted attention together.

The chaos around Harry stilled, and he realized that everyone was waiting to see (and then dissect at length) how he reacted to Draco's presence. Draco seemed to realize this too, because he raised his head to look over at the Gryffindor table. Unsure for a moment what to do, Harry settled on a curt nod, which Draco returned.

As the chatter resumed around him, Harry tuned it out, preferring to covertly watch Draco from across the room. Stoically, Draco poured himself a cup of coffee and took a couple slices of toast that served as props more than anything – he didn't do more than pick at them as he sipped his coffee. Unlike Harry, he was not descended upon en masse. The other occupants of his table appeared variously torn between apprehension and insatiable curiosity, settling for occasional whispers and sidelong glances in his direction. Draco ignored them with his infamous polished sangfroid, looking up only once to meet Harry's eyes. When he did, Draco's grey eyes burned with the same deep-rooted desperation that sucked at Harry's composure like a black hole unfurling in his belly.

… & …

As soon as he'd scarfed down a plate of eggs and potatoes he didn't taste, Harry fled. Halfway across the entrance hall his absentminded flight was interrupted by a spirited shouting.

"Harry! Harry, wait up!" Georgia cried as she descended on him. "I can't believe it! You and Draco! Why didn't you tell me? I knew it all al– "

Harry spun, wildly scanning the area for a place to hide and making sure it was free of bystanders, then took Georgia by the arm and pulled her behind a nearby tapestry before she could say anything more.

"Shh!" he hissed, covering her mouth with his hand. "Are you out of your mind? You can't just go shouting things like that in the corridors!"

"Sung hurry buh lie sting," she said, her eyes bright and her eyebrows energetic.

"What?" Harry said, then realized his hand was still over her mouth and had muffled her words. He drew it away quickly.

"I said, 'Sorry, but it's so exciting!' " she repeated. "I knew he liked you, right from the beginning!"

"You... what?" Harry was having a hard time keeping up. If he had pictured Georgia's reaction to this news – which he hadn't – it would have involved tears and claims of betrayal, not glee and the euphoria of wish-fulfillment.

"I told you that he fancied you _ages_ ago. I... I practically set you up! Remember? Why didn't you tell me you liked him back?"

"Well, because I..."

"Oh, look at you blushing!" She grinned sappily. "There's nothing I love more than I good romance..."

"Georgia, why are you so... happy?" Harry asked, deciding to forego discussing the validity of her conviction. It didn't really matter if she knew – or thought she knew – or not. Georgia's inextinguishable giddiness was too benign to be a real threat. "Why aren't you upset?"

"Upset?" she echoed, wrinkling her nose as if the very word confused her. "Why would I be upset?"

It was Harry's turn to look at her in confusion. "It's just that you seemed so... keen on me."

"But Harry, I told you weeks ago that things wouldn't work out between us. I thought you understood?"

"Oh, I did," he rushed to say. "I just wasn't sure that you... felt the same way."

"But Harry," she said, laughing as if he were too silly to take seriously, "I was the one who told you so!"

"Right... sorry..."

"There's no need to apologize! I'm just glad we've got it all sorted it out now!" She beamed at him expectantly, to which Harry could only respond with an uncertain attempt at a smile. "I won't pretend I wasn't a little upset, when I heard..." she went on, "but I thought about how Malfoy pined for you while you courted another" – Harry could only assume she meant herself – "and how your tortured pasts must have brought you together... and I realized how terribly romantic it all is."

Harry found himself torn between mortification and mirth, and had no idea how to respond. Fortunately he was saved from doing so by Georgia becoming suddenly serious.

"Just one more thing Harry, before I have to go," she said. "You do remember the," she glanced around and leaned in, stage-whispering her next words, "_omen _I warned you about, don't you? Your beloved Malfoy is in grave danger!"

Harry, who had much experience in the misleading and often melodramatic nature of prophecy, recognized in retrospect that if Georgia's prediction had, in fact, been valid, it had probably already been fulfilled – by Harry and Draco's recent mishap with Nocturna Mortem.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I'll take good care of him."

"You'll protect him?" she asked.

"With my life."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I _promise._"

Georgia nodded, apparently satisfied with his sincerity. "I have to go to class," she said. "Good luck!"

"See you," Harry replied.

With a concerned backward glance, Georgia left. Harry fell back against the wall as the tapestry swung shut, laughing to himself in disbelief and catching his breath as if he'd just flown a quick lap around the Quidditch pitch.

… & …

The flurry of attention didn't die down during Harry's morning classes, but out of necessity became less vocal. It was with acute relief that he loitered after his Defense Against the Dark Arts class until everyone had gone to pull out his cloak and sneak down to the dungeons.

Murmuring "Malkin's" to gain access to Draco's room – he hadn't answered Harry's knock so Harry had decided to let himself in and wait – sent a thrill down his spine. Once inside, he abandoned the cloak and went to stand in front of the still-flickering fire that suggested Draco hadn't been as committed to keeping up appearances that morning as Harry had been.

… & …

Draco could feel his pulse beating in his temples. It wasn't painful – not yet at least – but it was distracting and contributed to the overwhelming sensation of ill-ease that had plagued him since parting ways with Harry that morning. It was probably yet another affirmation of his innate weakness, but after the ordeal that was breakfast he had retreated to his room instead of going to his first class. The cowardliness of this avoidance wormed its way under skin and nettled him enough there, however, that he'd emerged to attend Arithmancy. He'd taken a longer but blessedly less-traveled route back afterward, and was only now returning to his room.

Entering in a haze of selfish preoccupation, Draco stopped in his tracks at the striking sight of Harry silhouetted by the simmering embers in his fireplace. Harry was standing still, evidently entranced by something he saw in the feeble flames. His hands were anchored within his pockets and Draco could see the stress of their situation in the slightly arched slump of Harry's shoulders and the sober hang of his head. Yet there was an inextinguishable vibrancy in him that clung to the ends of his hair and stretched elastic in his posture, that intangible something that had always managed to raise the small hairs on the back of Draco's neck. This latent vibrancy now fed off the fading firelight to render Harry with a shadowy allure that ignited a slow-burning longing in Draco's chest.

"You... You're beautiful." Draco hadn't intended to speak, but the words emerged anyway.

Harry turned, and on seeing Draco his posture immediately changed: he straightened and his features went lax, spreading out in a beatific smile.

"Draco," he said, simply.

As if this were his cue, Draco's body came back to life. He strode across the room, took Harry's face in his hands, and kissed him soundly. When he pulled away a minute later Harry's face hovered frozen for a moment, eyes still closed and lips still parted. Then he sighed, smiled at a private joy, and finally opened his eyes.

"What were you thinking about when I came in?" Draco asked, still cradling Harry's face between his hands.

"I was thinking..." said Harry slowly, as if making an effort recall the discontented person he'd been but two minutes ago, "about how I never would have expected to be here. Not like this."

Draco's hands fell to his side at the swift reminder of the incongruity of their relationship owing to the roles they'd played in their former life. "I know," he said, turning his head away from Harry. "The things I've done..."

"No, Draco. That's not what I'm talking about," Harry chastised him gently. "Well, in a way, but what I meant is that even though you were – "

" – awful," Draco supplied.

Harry acknowledged Draco's interjection only with a wry quirk of his lips and went on. "You were sort of regal, untouchable, you know?"

Draco stared at Harry for a few seconds in subtle awe at this latest revelation of Harry's unintentional refusal to align with the two-dimensional 'Potter' he'd been to Draco for so many years. He shook his head, smiling to himself.

"Look who's talking," he teased.

Rather than amusing him, Draco's attempt at lightheartedness seemed to remind Harry of just how tangible his fame could be when everyone was vying to get a finger on it. His expression lost the looseness it had gained when Draco arrived and resumed the downcast, taut quality it had had as he contemplated the fire.

"We need to talk," he said, his voice somber. "This morning was – "

"A nightmare," Draco finished. Lifting a hand to brace his forehead and pinch his temples, he walked over to sag down onto the foot of his bed.

Harry joined him. "What do we do?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you..." Harry hid his face, seeming embarrassed by his own question.

"Do I what?" Draco offered Harry this small help.

"Do you want... to be seen with me?" Harry winced as soon as the words were out. "That came out wrong."

"I know what you mean. And trust me, I do. I'm sick of hiding," Draco said with a bitter honesty neither of them were accustomed to.

"But?"

"But I think we have to be realistic. People may be starting to move on from the war, but they haven't forgotten it. As far as they're concerned the line between our two sides is as clear and inflexible as ever."

"It's not the gay thing you're really worried about at all, is it?" Harry asked, hitting the nail on the head. "It's how you think they're going to react to _you_."

"Don't get me wrong," Draco was quick to say. "The gay thing concerns me. But yeah, I guess I'm not exactly confident that anyone's going to take kindly to me having their hero under my spell – as they'll see it, anyway."

Harry looked like he wanted to protest. But he wasn't stupid, no matter what Draco had claimed countless times in their adolescence. He knew there was truth to Draco's words.

"What if..." he began, scrabbling for options. "What if we only told our friends?"

"Because that went so well with Ron," Draco snapped, frustrated not so much with Harry as with the obstinacy of their predicament.

Harry's face went pinched under the stress of the emotional sprain Draco had aggravated.

"Harry, I'm sorry," Draco said, immediately repentant. "I didn't mean it – "

"No, you're right," Harry interrupted him. "It did go really badly with Ron. But it caught him by surprise, didn't it? Before I had a chance to tell him properly. I'm not saying he would have taken it well under any circumstances, but it might have gone a bit better if he could have found out differently."

Draco had strong doubts about that, but he was willing to concede that Harry certainly knew Weasley better than he did. Maybe Ron had more capacity for understanding than Draco was aware of.

Harry sat up with the illumination of sudden inspiration in his eyes.

"Maybe we shouldn't make an announcement at all," he said. "What if we just go about our business as if nothing's out of the ordinary? If we act like it's not a big deal, maybe other people won't either."

"I don't know..."

"We'll keep a low profile on the whole, er, PDA thing," Harry continued, "but we won't hide that we're on friendly terms now. People can make of that what they will." He shrugged. "We of all people don't owe them anything."

It was strange, but even as an inkling of optimism settled over Draco for the first time since he'd decided to give in to the passions of his (admittedly predominant) selfish side and devote himself to establishing a real relationship with Harry, his prideful streak reared its ugly head and decided that having Harry wasn't enough. It wanted people to know that Harry belonged to him and he to Harry – in every way. He bristled at the assumption that their physical relationship would be something they would forever hide. For the first time he not only saw the benefits of PDA but coveted those who had the freedom to be demonstrative in their affection, people who had previously disgusted him. He scooted closer to Harry and leaned in so that he spoke his next words against Harry's mouth.

"Do we have to be discreet forever?" he asked in an undertone. "What if I want to do this," he nipped Harry's lips gently with his own, "in public?"

Harry swallowed visibly. "Then... you'll just have to..." – Draco kissed him again – "wait."

Draco was not in the mood for waiting. He kissed Harry again, not teasing this time, and tipped him backward on the bed, sliding on top of him. When they broke apart a minute or so later, he gazed into Harry's face, with Harry's unruly hair sprawled out behind him and his eyes intensified against the dark green of Draco's bed covers. _Mine,_ Draco thought triumphantly. _All mine._

"It's almost Christmas holidays, you know," said Draco conversationally. "We're graduating in a few months, and then what people at Hogwarts have to say won't matter anymore."

"Right," said Harry. "What's your point?"

"My point," said Draco, "is that perhaps after graduation we could... reevaluate."

"Reevaluate?"

"Yes, reevaluate."

Draco realized that he was crossing into new territory right now, Future territory (with all the implications of the capital F), but he didn't care. Selfishness and pride made him bold, it always had.

"I like the sound of reevaluation," Harry agreed, with an irresistible breathy quality to the words.

"Ah, me too," murmured Draco, leaning down for another kiss. Or two. Or three.

As Draco attempted to make the move from Harry's mouth across his jaw to the unfathomably delicious underside of his throat, Harry placed both hands on Draco's chest and pushed him away.

"I'm hungry," he stated. "We're missing lunch."

"Food. Trifles," said Draco, much more interested in Harry's skin than pumpkin juice or biscuits and gravy. But now that Harry had brought it to his attention, a gnaw of hunger yawned his stomach. He sat back on his heels. "You're right," he sighed.

Harry's eyes crinkled in amusement. Draco pretended not to notice and with exaggerated gallantry extended his hand to pull Harry to his feet.

"So, would you care to accompany me to the great hall?" Harry invited.

And Draco, knowing he was agreeing to something much more, replied, "Yes."

They were late for lunch, so the corridors were deserted as they made their way to the great hall. They didn't encounter a single soul until they reached the entrance hall, and even dared to tangle their fingers between them. When they crossed the threshold from the dungeons into the entrance hall, however, Harry stopped abruptly, eyes fixated on something across the way. Draco followed his gaze straight into the perturbed and nervous eyes of Ron Weasley. Their fingers separated under Ron's scrutiny.

The two parties stood locked in a sort of frozen face-off, neither making a move. Ron twitched; uncertainty flared across his unguarded features, and for a moment Draco thought he might actually say something to Harry. But the moment passed and Ron turned yet again from his best friend and disappeared into the great hall without a word.

Draco heard Harry's sigh next to him and reclaimed his hand to give it a supportive squeeze.

"We should go," was all Harry said outloud, but his eyes said more. They said, "Thank you."

_You're welcome. A thousand times, you're welcome._

… & …

Evening found Draco alone in his room, sitting by a crackling rekindled fire nursing a cup of tea – he was focusing his efforts on more natural sleeping aids now – and thoughts of Harry before bed. A knocking at the door roused him from the lulling pleasure of his reveries. He rose to answer it with considerable curiosity; he'd never had a visitor to this room before. Few even knew it existed, much less where it was.

It was Pansy.

"Can I come in?" she asked.

Draco hesitated.

"God, Draco. I found you half-dead in Harry Potter's arms just yesterday morning. I think the least you can do is let me talk to you."

Draco didn't concede so much as allow her to pass by him into the room without impeding her. She immediately dropped into one of his armchairs as if she belonged there, draping a leg over one arm and lounging languorously.

"What did you want to talk about?" asked Draco stiffly, following her into the room.

After hovering for a moment, uncertain of where to position himself in relation to her, he ended up bracing his forearms on the upper ridgeback of the other armchair in a pose made awkward by its forced casualness. The difference in how he occupied his own room between when Harry and Pansy shared it with him was striking. With Harry he had been relaxed, spread out and connected with Harry even when separated by physical distance. Now he was a person in compression, pulling every stray essence of himself within the compact boundaries of the little space he was taking up. More than that, though, it was impossible to have her back in his room without it dredging up memories of her last visit, memories Draco took great pains to keep below the surface of conscious thought.

"You've been a naughty boy, Draco," she said, inspecting her fingernails as if the topic bored her. Draco saw straight through her act, however. It was an elementary deception tactic, one every Slytherin learned to see through by the end of their first year.

"Have I?" he countered in his old drawl, as if his transgressions could serve to only mildly amuse him.

"Mhmm."

"And how is that?"

In an instant Pansy lost her affected languor. She sat up and leaned toward Draco. "Tell me Draco, exactly how long have you been in love with Harry Potter?"

Draco would have been ashamed to admit outloud how much this blunt accusation threw him off. But in his defense, he was hopelessly out of practice; he had already made peace with his decision to relinquish the Slytherin lifestyle.

"Excuse me?" was all he managed to come up with.

"There's really no point in trying to deny it," she said. "Shall I tell you how I found you?" She raised her eyebrows and Draco felt that he'd probably rather not, but it had been a rhetorical question. She leaned back in the chair, once more taking on the careful boredom. "Goyle had told me about his conversation with you the night before and I wanted to come talk to you to set the record straight."

Draco thought it rather more likely that she had intended to make sure the bridge to Draco hadn't been entirely burned, but if there was anything he knew, it was when to hold his tongue.

"I knocked on your door but you didn't answer," she continued. "I was going to give up, until I remembered that I knew your password. It was already nine o'clock so I figured I could wake you if you were still sleeping, so I went inside. And what I saw..." Her eyes took on a shrewd glint. "You, in nothing but the silk pajama bottoms your mother gave you for Christmas sixth year," (Pansy loved those silk pajama bottoms, and had made no secret of it that winter during lazy mornings spent lounging in the Slytherin common room) "laying on top of an equally topless _Harry fucking Potter."_

Draco cringed. He would have signed away a large portion of his Gringotts vault if he could have Pansy un-see that particular sight.

"So," she said in conclusion. "I don't think you can explain this one away, Draco." She sounded smug.

Draco knew when he was defeated. And it was only Pansy, after all. He abandoned his standing position to sink gingerly into the chair instead.

"I know," he said.

"What?" Pansy's surprise slipped out before she could temper it. She'd obviously expected him to resist.

"You're right. I'm in love with Harry Potter."

She might tell, but Draco was banking on her embarrassment of having the seven-year object of her affections (or rather, ambitions) turn gay to keep her quiet. Besides, the small enjoyment he got from her shock made spilling the secret worth it.

"So that's why you rejected me," she said, taking a stab at him to make up for the slip of her composure.

It didn't work, because that was hardly the sole – or even main – reason he'd rebuffed her; he hadn't even _known _he'd been in love with Harry at the time. But again Draco held his tongue and said simply, "Yeah."

Pansy sat up straighter, as if this verified her vindication. "Have you been in love with him all along? Is that why you've been so obsessed with him all these years?"

Draco smoothed out the fabric of his robe against his knee and spoke into the fire. "I don't know. I was so selfish and corrupted back then; maybe in its own sick way my hatred _was _love and I was too blind to see it." He looked up at Pansy. "You know, I wanted to apologize for the way I used you. I shouldn't have taken it that far. I just... I guess part of me hasn't changed much at all."

Pansy's expression looked scrambled, as if Draco's pensive candidness was unsettling her far more than the idea that he could love a Gryffindor. Somehow, without drawing on a single Slytherin instinct, he had regained the upper-hand in this encounter. The one card she'd held – the knowledge of Harry and Draco's affair – she had played with too cavalier haste. And Draco had always been the superior player.

"About what Goyle talked to me about," he said, changing the subject.

"Right," said Pansy, perking up. "I wanted to tell you – "

"I'm really happy for you," Draco went on, as if she hadn't spoken. "Goyle may not always have a lot to contribute, but he's as loyal as they come. He'll be good to you."

Pansy's mouth hung open, empty. Draco stood up, offering her his hand. All had been said that ought to be, and any more was at risk of being superfluous at best.

"It was nice of you to stop by," said Draco, escorting her to the door before she knew what hit her. _Maybe there really is something to the whole Gryffindor 'killing them with kindness' nonsense, _he thought, smirking.

"Bye..." she managed, before she was out in the hallway with the door to Draco's room sliding shut behind her.

Draco breathed deeply when she was gone, relishing a certain lightness that had come over him. _That could have gone worse, _he thought. _Much worse._

… & …

"When was the first owl domesticated?" Harry asked Hermione a couple days later in the library. He was working on one of the periodic written assignments Hagrid assigned them for Care of Magical Creatures to appease what he called the "traditionalist twats" on the school board.

The other day, Hermione had magnanimously offered that Draco join them studying one afternoon. Partly, Harry suspected, out of guilt that Ron had yet to come around. Harry had somewhat tentatively broached the idea to Draco and had been pleasantly surprised when Draco agreed. And so here they were, arranged in an amiable, if awkward, triangle around a library table of which Harry was the vertex, with their respective homework spread out between them.

"1263," she replied, without looking up from her Ancient Runes essay.

"Why do you even know that?" Draco asked, with an awe that made Harry – having grown used to Hermione's encyclopedic knowledge long ago – smile.

"I read it in a book," said Hermione, as if were obvious. To her, of course, it was.

Draco turned to Harry, the look of awe still on his face. Harry raised his eyebrows and shrugged in a gesture that said, "It's Hermione. What do you expect?" Draco returned to his work, shaking his head to himself in disbelief.

The scratch of quills served in place of conversation amongst them. It was still a fragile truce, but it was going well so far, and Harry's hopes for the future were growing by the minute.

"Oh, Harry," said Hermione, looking up from a parchment crammed with tiny, strict lines of writing. "Have you thought any more about shadowing an Auror?"

Draco's head raised in interest.

"Yeah," said Harry, feeling very aware of Draco's eyes on him. "I, um. I think I'll do it."

"Brilliant!" Hermione praised him.

"You're going to go into Auror training?" Draco asked, in a pointed tone that wasn't exactly accusatory but verged into the slightly defensive, and Harry realized that for all the talking they'd done about the future of their relationship recently, they'd never discussed this – the obvious dilemma facing every seventh and eighth year: what they were going to do after graduation.

"I've been thinking about it, yeah." Harry was now hyper-aware of Hermione's attention, feeling as if he and Draco had accidentally begun a private conversation rooted in subtext.

Thank God for her social savviness, Harry thought when she turned the conversation into one of the many identical ones their graduating peers had on a daily basis by asking Draco what his plans were. Not to mention Harry was now keenly curious.

"To be perfectly honest," said Draco, "I have no idea. I'll be making things up as I go along, I suppose."

He said it with his signature aloof self-confidence, but there was a tension around his eyes that told Harry he was anything but. He tried to catch Draco's eye, but Draco made a point of choosing that moment to busy himself with refreshing his quill's ink. Harry was just about to open his mouth and say something to solicit Draco's attention when they were interrupted by the arrival of a fourth party.

Ron approached the table with an embarrassed shuffle. He eyed the one empty chair, across from Draco, but anchored himself to Hermione's side rather than taking it.

"Hermione, can I, er, talk to you for a minute?" he asked in an undertone, his eyes flicking uncertainly over to Harry. He seemed almost wary of Harry, as if Harry might attack him at any moment.

"Ron, I'm studying," said Hermione impatiently.

"I know, but – it'll just take a sec."

After a quick glance at her table-mates, Hermione sighed and turned back to Ron. "Alright," she said, standing up and following Ron to an alcove a few feet away, where they commenced a semi-heated whispered conversation.

Harry and Draco both pointedly returned their attention to their work, but as Hermione's whispers became increasingly shrill and Ron's cheeks increasingly flushed it was impossible not to catch some snippets here and there.

"… why you're here with _them_ when you could be …" – "We're studying, Ron … welcome to join us …" – "… like hell I'd join _him_ … rather have tea with Grawp …" – "Well go ahead then!"

There was no need to overhear this last statement. It was exclaimed without a shred of discretion and punctuated by Hermione stomping back over to the table, taking her seat with a huff, and resuming the scratching of her quill. Ron gave their table one last sheepish look before fleeing the library for locations more conducive to indulging a red-headed temper.

Hermione continued her angry scratching until she thought that Ron had gone, then set down her quill in exasperation – whether with Ron or herself, it wasn't clear – and looked up.

"So," said Harry, to spare her the awkwardness of acknowledging her scene and to show her his gratitude for arguing with Ron on he and Draco's behalf, "how do I arrange a meeting with an Auror?"

"Well," said Hermione, latching onto the topic with relief, "first you should talk to McGonagall..."

… & …

The last few weeks before the winter holidays passed in a blur of classes, homework, and hours wiled away with Draco. The morning of the holiday diaspora found Harry sprawled on his bed in his pajamas, watching his roommates scramble to finish last-minute packing. As much as he loved Christmas with the Weasley's, Harry had elected to stay behind with Draco, who for the first time had no where to go but an empty manor.

The fury of speculation that had followed Harry and Draco's sojourn to the Hospital Wing had finally cooled off to a low simmer. An impasse had been reached between them and the rest of the school: they refused to confirm anything nor conform to their old, expected roles; their fellow students allowed them to engage in their strange new friendship with minimal heckling (there had initially been several instances when Draco had been harassed, but those, too, had died down once Harry made it clear that anyone abusing Draco would have him to contend with – somewhat to Draco's mortification, but Harry suspected that deep down Draco enjoyed being protected) but refused to definitively cease the rumors and speculation. It was, like so many other things in Harry's life at the moment, a precarious harmony, but it was functional.

The room emptied out as people finished their packing and went down for their last breakfast at Hogwarts before the holidays, leaving their trunks on their beds for the house-elves to retrieve and load onto the train. Eventually only Ron remained, packing so slowly he seemed to be stalling for some reason.

Harry lay back on his bed, flipping through a Victor Krum biography Hermione had relegated to him when Krum himself sent it to her (she having no interest in it), signed of course (the cheesy endearments scrawled onto the first page were Harry's favorite part, suspecting Krum had no idea how vain his continued efforts were).

He and Ron had yet to have an official reconciliation, but in the past few weeks they'd begun exchanging the occasional civil word, at least at the dinner table when dishes needed passing, or in front of the Gryffindor fireplace at night when their obstinate avoidance of interaction had begun putting a strain on the group's conversation.

At last Harry heard the click of Ron shutting and latching his trunk. A moment later, Ron himself appeared at the foot of Harry's bed. Harry sat up.

"All set?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Ron. "Just finished. Probably shoulda started packing before this morning, but..." he waved a hand through the air awkwardly and didn't finish his sentence.

"You looking forward to the holidays?" Harry asked, not knowing what else to say.

"Sure," said Ron, with a little more enthusiasm than he would have used if things had been normal between them. "You?"

"Yup."

"Mom's all buggered that you're not coming this year. She's probably going to use every color of yarn she has on your sweater to make up for it." Ron rolled his eyes.

Out loud, Harry laughed. Inside he wondered whether Mrs. Weasley knew the real reason why he wasn't joining the Weasley's that year.

"Maybe next year," he offered.

"Yeah, maybe."

Ron looked uncomfortable again, and Harry realized he'd brought the elephant into the room with his casual statement. Would he be free to come alone next year, or would he have Draco in tow? Harry knew the answer to that already, but he guessed Ron was holding out hope for the former possibility.

A self-conscious silence fell between them then, and Harry found himself wishing Ron would make his excuses and go to put an end to it. But Ron stayed, watching his feet fidget back and forth on the floor beneath him, so there was nothing Harry could do but wait it out to see if Ron would spit out whatever it was he'd come over to say.

"Malfoy's staying behind too?" Ron asked, though he must have already known the answer.

"Yeah."

Harry braced himself for the coming conversation, knowing it had to happen eventually but dreading it all the same.

Ron resumed his inspection of his fidgeting feet for a moment, as if they could give him the will to go on. "You know I – I don't like him. He's been an arrogant git all my life and I can't forget that," he said, looking at Harry in a way that clearly wondered how Harry could. "But you've been my best mate for just as long, and I can't forget that, either."

Harry waited to see if Ron was finished. Ron, evidently interpreting Harry's silence as dissatisfaction with the completeness of his apologetic preamble, capped it off by articulating the implied, "I'm sorry."

Harry experienced a sudden impulse to hug Ron, and wondered whether it was the indulgence of the poof in him that was making him so demonstrative in his affections lately. However, he doubted that Ron would appreciate an opportunity to get in touch with his expressive side, so he limited himself to a friendly bumping of Ron's shoulder with his fist. It wasn't a perfect reconciliation, and they still had a long way to go, but it was start.

Ron lips quirked with the beginnings of a relieved and sheepish grin that was still too shy to wholly unfold.

"How are things with Hermione?" Harry asked, thinking that by asking Ron about something he loved he could reciprocate the sentiment of Ron's apology.

"Brilliant." Harry wanted to laugh at the look of amazement on Ron's face, as if he couldn't quite fathom his own luck. "I'm actually – I'm going to propose to her on New Year's Eve." He looked scared by the enormity of his plans, but excited all the same.

"Ron, that's great!" Harry exclaimed, in genuine enthusiasm. Now that he was happy in love himself, there was nothing to stain his happiness for his best friends. "Owl me when she says yes, will you?"

"'Course," said Ron.

They were interrupted by Ron's stomach growling audibly.

"You should go before you miss breakfast," said Harry, seeing that Ron would refrain from excusing himself on the basis of their new truce.

"Yeah, probably should," Ron agreed, not needing any further encouragement to go placate his protesting stomach. "Well, I'll see you around. Happy Christmas, Harry."

"You too," Harry said earnestly. "Good luck."

Ron gave a small parting wave, then disappeared down the staircase. Harry fell back against his pillows, feeling that this one thing, at least, wasn't as precarious as it had been when he woke up. Slowly but surely his life was solidifying around him, and for the first time in a long time he was allowing himself to be optimistic. To stake hopes in the future. To plan ahead.

… & …

Harry and Draco were sitting cuddled up on Draco's bed late Christmas morning, Harry reading a Defense Against the Dark Arts history Draco had given him – largely devoted to the establishing and development of the Auror department – and Draco doing nothing but wallowing in his own contentedness. Theoretically, with the majority of the school dispersed for the holidays, they could be doing this in one of their common rooms without worrying about discovery, but even with the school to themselves they preferred the coziness of Draco's small room. Besides, Draco would have felt vaguely exhibitionist engaging in some of the... _activities_ they favored in a public room, empty or not. His room – with its large, luxurious bed – was simply more convenient.

"So there's a Ministry function coming up that I have to go to," said Harry, looking up from where he was curled up in the crook of Draco's arm.

"What for?" asked Draco absently.

"Something about naming their new wing." Draco remembered seeing a headline to that effect a few weeks ago, though he hadn't read the article. "Anyway, they really want me there. Actually, I'm kind of, well... I'm sort of the guest of honor," Harry said.

"Ah." Draco smiled to himself. He could almost hear Harry blushing.

Harry sat up and looked Draco in the eyes.

"I want you to come," he said. Draco opened his mouth to protest; he'd been raised on pretentious, ceremonious gatherings and had lost his taste for them long ago. But Harry wasn't finished. "I want you to come," he repeated, "and I want to be able to say, 'Hi, Mr. Ministry Official, how are you this evening? Allow me to introduce my boyfriend, Draco Malfoy.'"

Draco's stomach Vanished. Or at least that's how it felt.

"Harry," he said. As far as they had come, they had yet to put label on their relationship, even between themselves.

"Draco," Harry countered.

"I can't. You know I can't."

"No, I don't. So why don't you tell me."

'Please don't make me,' Draco begged with his eyes. Nothing doing. Harry's eyes were set, and determined to receive an answer. He sighed. "Look. However I may have changed, my name remains the same. And it does not exactly bring joy to the hearts of the Ministry. I highly doubt they'll consent to add my name to the guest list with a smile and a wave of their quill."

"They're naming the _wing_ after me, Draco. I think that qualifies me to bring any guest I want."

"I don't know, Harry..."

"Is that the only problem you have with it?" Harry asked. "It's not... the other bit?"

"You mean the poor ministry officials fainting left and right when you sidle up to them and announce that I'm your boyfriend?" Draco asked insouciantly. "Nope, that bit I have no problem with whatsoever." He smirked.

Harry made an endearing struggle with his lips to force their smile back into straight line. "Draco, I'm serious."

"So am I."

"You mean it? You... you want to be my boyfriend?"

Draco lifted his hand and slid his fingers through Harry's beautiful thick hair, coming to rest on his neck. He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Harry's lips. "I wouldn't settle for anything less," he murmured, smiling against Harry's mouth.

Harry's smile broke free and surged across his face and he lunged at Draco, tackling him onto the couch for a sweet, enthusiastic kiss, which Draco, clasping Harry's cheeks between his hands, eagerly returned.

After a few minutes Harry pulled away, propping himself up on his hands above Draco.

"When is it?" Draco asked.

"When is what?"

"Your evening of honor!"

"Oh, that..." Harry rolled his eyes. "A week after graduation."

"And you're asking me now? That's not exactly 'coming up,' is it?" Draco asked, touched that Harry was not only thinking that far ahead but also willing to make plans that superimposed their relationship onto the future.

"I wanted to give you enough time to find something decent to wear," Harry teased, smiling because they both knew it was just an excuse.

"Think I can get away with re-wearing my graduation robes?"

"Have you seen them? I don't think you'll want to. Ron swears he heard they've combined all four house colors into one garment." Harry's eyes crinkled, a sure sign that he was kidding.

Draco made a face. "Don't even joke, Harry. That's ghastly!"

Harry laughed.

"Okay," said Draco, growing serious again. "I'll go."

"You will?" Harry's expression was one of such earnest hope that if Draco hadn't already agreed to go, that alone would have convinced him.

"Yes, I will."

In a surge of triumph, Harry grabbed Draco by the neck to pull himself up and plant a sound kiss on Draco's mouth. They smiled stupidly into each other's faces, then settled back into their previous engagements – Harry to his book and Draco to his thoughts, absently stroking Harry's hair.

After a few minutes Harry set down his book again, the flush of victory at getting his way having ebbed into guilt for demanding it in the first place.

"Draco, are you sure you want to go through all that for me?" he queried anxiously. "I mean, like you said, people aren't exactly going to be happy to see you... I'll understand, you know, if you think it's not worth it."

"Of course it's worth it," said Draco adamantly.

Seeing Harry's still skeptical expression, Draco shifted so that they were sitting face-to-face rather than nestled side-by-side. He braced his hands against the headboard on either side of Harry's head and stared straight into Harry's eyes, their faces only inches apart.

"Harry Potter," he said, "don't you know that I love you?"


	22. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

"_I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." - Mother Teresa_

Eighteen-year-old Draco Malfoy watched in the mirror as Madam Malkin puttered around his ankles, folding and tugging and pinning his robes. It was odd, maybe, but in the eight years that had come between he thought he'd never looked more like his eleven-year-old self than he did now. Once again he was on the cusp of something new and promising. There was a pink flush to the pale skin of his cheeks and a eager shine to the grey of his eyes that had seldom made an appearance in the interim years. Years that had been, perhaps, everything he'd expected yet anything but what he'd hoped. Though Draco's external expression was relaxed, his reflection beamed back at him.

"You know," he said to Madam Malkin conversationally, "I'm graduating tomorrow."

"Are you now? That's wonderful."

"I know. My boyfriend went down the street to make dinner reservations for afterward and to pick up the key to the flat we're buying together." Draco could hear the smugness in his voice, but he couldn't be bothered to temper it. For once, he felt, it was well-deserved.

"Congratulations," she said politely. Well, you could hardly expect her to be as excited as he was, Draco allowed. As far as she was concerned, his happiness was no more unique than that of anyone else who stood on these stools each and every day. Little did she know.

"And these robes," he continued, gesturing to the rich burgundy dress robes he was being fitted for, "I convinced him to buy me for an event next week where we're going to announce our, ah..." Boyfriendhood? "relationship."

Madam Malkin sat back on her heels. "Well, I'm afraid can't promise you luck with that, but I can promise you'll look devastating doing it. This color really suits you."

Draco grinned, appraising his preening reflection. "I'd better," he said softly.

There was a small jingle as the shop door opened, admitting a young man of medium height topped with black hair that managed to be both messy and effortlessly sexy at once. Draco's reflection sighed in appreciation of the boy's unassuming and charismatic good looks. His heart pounded in a silent greeting as the boy made his way to the back of the shop.

"Harry," Draco breathed.

At the same time, Madam Malkin exclaimed, "Harry Potter!"

Draco watched in the mirror as Harry made his way over to the back of the shop where Draco stood on the fitting stool. Madam Malkin hastily rose to her feet and descended on him.

"What a surprise!" she exclaimed. "What an honor!"

"Likewise," said Harry, obligingly allowing his hand to be clasped between Madam Malkin's for a couple beats longer than was strictly necessary.

"Oh, posh," Madam Malkin tutted. "The honor is all mine, I assure you." She stepped back from Harry, fanning herself against the sweat that had broken out in her excitement. "How can I help you?"

"I'm just looking, thanks," Harry demurred.

Madam Malkin reluctantly busied herself at Draco's feet while Harry came to stand behind Draco. He met Draco's eyes in the mirror, sending the familiar jolt of anxious delight into Draco's belly, and smiled conspiratorially. Draco's reflection winked at him, then disappeared, and Draco was left with Harry all to himself.

"Hello," he said to cover up the turmoil of desire and restless happiness that Harry's presence never ceased to cause in him. "Hogwarts, too?" he teased.

"Yes," said Harry.

"Fancy that," Draco mock marveled.

"Good term?"

"The best. You?"

"Brilliant."

"Turn," directed Madam Malkin.

Draco pivoted in place and was now facing Harry. His position on the stool made him taller than Harry, able to gaze down into Harry's upturned face.

"And?" said Draco, abandoning the playful repartee. "Did you get it?"

"Get what?" asked Harry innocently.

"You know what." Draco gave Harry a gentle push.

"This?" Harry raised a fist, opening to reveal a small silver key resting on his palm.

Draco picked it up. Objectively speaking, it was unremarkable. Just another flat-key, mundane and ordinary. Pinched between his thumb and forefinger and held up to the light, however, Draco caught his breath. It was the most magnificent key in Britain, he was quite sure.

Dropping Draco's hem, Madam Malkin stood up.

"Mr. Malfoy," she said, addressing Harry rather than Draco. "This... this isn't the boyfriend... is it?"

"It is," Harry replied, looking at Draco and answering for him. Caught bragging, Draco smiled shamefacedly into Harry's crinkled eyes.

"You're a lucky man," said Madam Malkin, wrenching her eyes from Harry to appraise Draco with a newfound respect bordering on awe that shone in her eyes like unshed tears.

Harry curled his fingers into Draco's robe. "Actually," he said, tugging Draco forward slightly until their foreheads bumped, "that would be me."


End file.
